The future of Paragould is something that every citizen is
vitally interested in. The town has never been a boom town. It has
always maintained a steady growth. There have been periods of depression
but they were only temporary. The town is growing now and several
hundred thousand dollars have been put out in new improvements this
year. During the year the town has con-structed a sewage system
which has just been completed. Bonds aggregating nearly $40,000 were
issued for this purpose. Bertig Bros. have built a three story
department store at a cost approximating $75,000. The public school
district has erected a $30,000
high school. Numerous residences and
cottages have been built and improved and miles of concrete sidewalks
have been built. The Crystal Ice Co. is preparing to make improvements
in the city lighting plant that will cost $20,000. Deep wells are being
bored by the city waterworks company, the
waterworks being the property of the city.
The Breckenridge Mer. Co. are laying the foundation for a two-story
implement house 60x80, to be built of brick and concrete. Other
improvements are in contemplation and there is no reason why the year
1910 should not keep pace with preceding years in the march of
progress.
Paragould is yet in its infancy, both in age and in growth. It is
only an infant and will develop into a giant of commercial prowess as
the years roll on.
The surrounding country is comparatively undeveloped. True there
are many good farms with fine improvements, but there are still
thousands of acres of lands that are not cultivated and they can be
bought at a reasonable price. This is especially true of the country
east of us, where there is much
submerged land that is being restored by drainage. The great fertile
valley of the
Saint Francis spreads out before us on the
east inviting the strong arm of the husband-man and here are millions of
acres of as fine lands as the sun ever shone upon that are yet to be
opened up to settlement and culti-vation. When this country is opened up
and put into cultivation it will be a veritable Egypt to which our
population can turn for the staff of life. There are now enough vacant
lands on the St. Francis and within the trade area of Paragould to
support almost a million population and when this land is put in
cultivation, as it will be, it will add many cubics to the dimensions of
Paragould. The country west, north and south, while more thickly
populated, is not by any means developed to the fullest possibilities.
Improved agricultural methods, better farms and farm houses, better
roads and a more progressive citizenship are the inevitable results of
the coming years. The ridge land contiguous to Paragould is well adapted
to fruit and berry growing, to stock raising and to pasturage.
of our soil and climate to the fruit and berry industry and our easy access to the markets it is only a question of time when Paragould will become an important shipping point for these products.
There is no better point in the south for canning industries and if we had half a dozen canneries in and around Paragould they would put added life and energy into the city and the country and fruit and berry growers would reap a harvest from them. But it is to the east that we must turn for the heavy trade that is to make the future Paragould. The St. Francis river, lying nine miles east of us has been a barrier to
securing the fine trade of the section which is tributary to Paragould, but in recent years the Paragould Southeastern Railroad has opened one avenue and a wagon bridge constructed across some two or three
miles below where the railroad crosses the river has given another route. This bridge has been maintained as a toll bridge but recently the merchants of
Paragould bought the bridge and have thrown it open as a free
public highway.Greene county has assumed the responsibility for the
maintenance of the bridge and will in the near future make needed
repairs that will put it in first class condition. With a free bridge
across the St. Francis it is believed that a heavy trade
will come from the territory east of the river, much of which lies in
Missouri.
Other avenues of transportation to that
favored region, one of the finest arming
sections of the country, are expected to be opened and Paragould
will aid and encourage any movement that will place the town in easier
reach of that trade and improved trans-
portation facilities. It is only a question of time when the P. & M.
railroad will find it necessary to build to Paragould and that will
afford a much needed and desired outlet to the east.
The Paragould of the future depends much upon the development
of that section of the country and on improved facilities for reaching
it. The whole of the St. Francis valley is a
rich, alluvial country which, if
opened up to cultivation and settlement would make Paragould a
city of 50,000.The local drainage projects are but one of the means of
reclamation. The govern-ment is expected to take a hand in the
reclamation of this vast area by dredging the river and affording an
outlet of the surface water which covers much of the county and then
local drainage will finish the complete
reclamation.
Paragould doubles its population every ten years. The census
of 1900 was double that of 1890 and the census of 1910 will double that
of 1900. There was no census of 1880, because there
was no town, not a brush broken for a town. If this ratio of
increase is maintained what will Paragould be in 1995? Our con-ception
of the Paragould of that date is shown in the
handsome sky scraper printed on this page. A building of this character
will perhaps occupy the corner where the Baptist church is, another of
like dimensions will likely stand on the Clyde Mack corner and some of
Clyde's great great grand children may be
multi-millionaires who will look back with
feelings of commiseration upon this day and generation as a age of
medevialism.
We can raise the curtain of
futurity and in our imagination see the entire
country girdled with rail-roads and electric cars, while the more
venturesome fly through the air in aeroplanes. The swamps of the St.
Francis valley will be dotted with elegant homes and the means
of transportation twenty miles from Paragould
into the interior will be so quick and easy the the average citizen will
skim over the country while reading the Daily Soliphone, which will then
be a twelve and sixteen page paper, carrying a full telegraph service
and
printed on a fast perfecting press with a
capacity of 50,000 an hour.
Had we not better be optimists seeing
the bright side of the picture of the future
than pessimists groveling in despair with
no hope for future glory? If you say the
picture is overdrawn and that there is no
possibility of its realization can you not look back at the development
that this country has made in less than a half century and by the
comparison say that such realization is possible?
Is it not true that what has been done can be done? If what has
been done in 27 years of progress in Paragould has raised plots of
ground then worth $40 to a valuation of
$10,000, and farm lands then worth fifty cents an acre
in coon skins is now raised to $25 an acre and in many instances more,
is it not possible that future development will show equal enhancement
in values, equal increase in population and equal improve-ment in all
lines of human endeavor?
Figure it out for yourself and in the mean
time gaze upon the stately walls of the
Paragould sky scraper of 1995.
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CACHE VALLEY RAILROAD
The future of Paragould looks to the
extension of the Cache Valley Railroad to
this city. The road is now in operation for
a distance of about twelve miles and its
extension to Paragould is one of the things
contemplated for the future. Perhaps the
extension would have been made before
this, but for the panic of 1907
which
demoralized financial matters for several
months, extending far into 1908.
Paragould needs a western outlet, it
needs a branch of the Frisco to give com-
peting rates and it is only a question of time until the P. & M. or the
Cache Valley or both will be absorbed by the
Frisco and when that is done Paragould will soon have increased railroad
facilities and competitive freight rates.
