Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 April 1903 — SHOW EVERY HOUSE. [ARTICLE]

SHOW EVERY HOUSE.

MAPB BEING MADE FOR RURAL DELIVBRX EXPERIMENT. Indiana Will Be Completely Covered by System Within Two Years and Every Farmer Will Hava Hie Nail Brought Directly to Hie Door. The announcement ia made .from Washington that every farm house in Indiana ia to be reached by rural mail delivery carriera within two years, which means that the work of locating every house in the State will be completed in that time. -i Since April 1, seventeen Indiana counties have been supplied with rural mail service. In fourteen of these the work of making a complete record of the rural districts has been completed. Every farm house and the population of the country districts, have been set forth in carefully prepared maps, \\liick locate all roads and indicate their character—whether dirt or gravel, good or bad. These beautiful maps are rolled up and filed away in the office of Supt. F. B. Rathbone of the Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan district, located in the Majestic building in Indianapolis. So complete is this information, by

counties, that the 41,997 farm bouses in fourteen of the seventeen counties have beeir located down to their very acre. It ia found that the rural population of these 41,997 homes is 216,565 persons. Information can be had concerning ages and sex. The measurements of roads, both grave) and dirt, in counties whose records of this kind have been thus far left vacant, are being made now. The statistics tor the maps of Gibson, Posey and Delaware counties, whose complete comity service was instituted by experts from Washington, are now beiug compiled in Indianapolis, and they will be complete in a short time. It is not known yet how valuable complete' records will be. There are* many ways in which the maps, when completed for the entire State, can be used with very'great effect in promoting business, and they will be very valuable for the information of the public, if the government decides to give that information by a reproduction of the maps. The government has sent five expert draftsmen to Indianapolis to do this work, and maps are being turned out, county hy county, from the small section and township diagrams made by the ten traveling inspectors as they establish the routes. The draftsmen have had long experi'enee in mail route map making, and they are all agreed that the map of Madison -County, which has just been completed, and shows 4,412 rural homes, with a population of 22,060 people, in an area of 500 square miles, to be served by fortysix carriers, who daily cover 1,050 5-16 miles, over 941% miles of the finest gravel roads in the country, and 103 1-0 miles of good dirt roads, is the model rural route county to-day in the United. States, and should produce the best showing in the experiments now being made. The men who. have been working in Indiana, going over and reproducing section maps showing roads, elevations aud other natural conditions, say they are not surprised that Indiana was chosen above all States of the Union as the experimenting ground for complete county and complete State rural mail delivery service. Superintendent Rathbone is enthused with the progress being made in Indiana. He has just returned from Washington, where he Was in conference with those directing the rural route work. The reports that have been coming from Washington that the first complete State service would be established in Indiana within two years, he found to be true, He abo found that the paaaage of the law, by the Indiana Legialatare, permitting certain taxes to be set aside to keep rural route roads in good condition, had had good effect oe the powers at Washington.

Since returning . from Washington Superintendent Rathbone aaya he can announce that by July I—the end of the half year—complete county service will be instituted in the counties of Cass, Miami, Wabash, Huntington and Blackford, which, with Grant already covered, will complete the Eleventh Indiana district, a compliment given to Congressman G. W. Steele on his retirement from a long service in Congress. Other counties to he covered by July 1 are Adams, in Congressman Cromer’s Eighth district; Johnson County, in the Fourth district; Fayette and Union, in the Sixth; Lawrence, in the Second, and Warrick, in the First. This will make a total of twenty-eight counties, or almost! one-third of the State, covered with complete county service by July 1. Superintendent Rathbone announces that in the next half year, ending with the present calendar year, practically all of the central,!the northeastern section, and “thCpdsk4t” of the State, will be covered. Cromer’s Eighth, Congressman Watson’s Sixth and Congressman Hemenway’s First districts will have complete district service, and Congressman Charles B. Landis’ Ninth nud Congressman Robinson’s Twelfth district will receive a great deal of attention. The counties to lie covered between- July 1 and Jan. 1 are Steuben, Allen, Wells, Jay, Randolph, Wayne, Henry, Montgomery, Fountain, Hancock, Shelby. Franklqj, Spencer and Washington —fourteen counties, making a total

of fort.v-two counties, or almost half of the State. While the work of instituting comity service is going on in these counties, however, work is being done in all of the other counties of the State, from one to half a dozen routes at a time are being put in them. There are a large number of counties, not included in the forty-two named, that are half covered already. In this list are Clinton, Vigo, Clay, Morgan, Monroe, Knox, Howard, Floyd, Clark, Jennings, Decatur, DeKalb, Kosciusko, Marshall and Carroll. It is estimated that over half of the State is already getting the rural mail service and that when this year’s work of completing out co'unty services is„done that it will only leave 400 or 500 routes to be established next year. It is thought' that this can be done in the first nine mouths of the year, so that when winter comes on next year every farmer in Indiana will have his mail brought to his door.