Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 March 1885 — Room for Immigration. [ARTICLE]

Room for Immigration.

With advancing spring the railroad companies of the West are preparing for the immigration of 1885, which bids fair to assume enormous proportions. The question naturally arises in the minds of those unacquainted with the country as to where so many people are to find settlement. Years ago the alarm was sounded that the available limits of the great West had been reached, that the agricultural lands were about all taken, and that all that lay beyond was a rainless region, fit only as uncertain grazing grounds for the venturesome herder and shepherd. But the settler has kept steadily encroaching upon the boundaries of this vast region until he has finally pushed his corn and wheat fields into the very center of the mythical Great American Desert, exploding the theories of the explorer and spoiling the map of the geography. The Government lands of Dakota have been rapidly disappearing until all of the free lands south of the fortysixth parallel are for the most part confined to the counties of Campbell, McPherson, Walworth, Potter, and the recently ppened Crow Creek Reservation. These comprise some of the finest and most productive lands to be found in the great valley of the Missouri, and the present season will no doubt see the entry of the last available acre in South Dakota, lying east of the Missouri River. However, this will be far from exhausting Dakota’s homes for the poor. The Mouse River District in the north is in itself a State in extent of territory, of wheat lands excelled by neither the Red nor the Jim River valleys, while in the Black Hills region are to be found some of the most fertile valleys in the whole West. Northwestern Nebraska, which is best reached by the Sioux City and Pacific Railroad, is the latest scope of country opened to settlement by railway construction, and the indications are that within the coming eighteen months but little of the Government lands in that part of the State will remain unclaimed. But it is many miles from the Wyoming line to the mountains beyond, and so long as the free lands of the Government domain prove to be productive so long will Settlers, in thousands, continue to flock to this rich and fertile section of the West.