Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 June 1902 — GOODLAND WINS OUT. [ARTICLE]

GOODLAND WINS OUT.

County Seat Election Goes Against Kentland. There was joy In Goodland last Saturday night. The election held that day for the relocation of the county seat at Goodland carried. This result was not expected even in Goodland and when the result was announced the town went wild with joy. Earlier in the evening, Kentland, thinking she had won in the contest, proceeded to celebralfe, but her joy was of short duration. Both Goodland and Kentland made a hard fight. Goodland had raised $1,900 to defray the expenses of the canvass. The amount raised in Kentland is unknown to the Journal, but much more money was raised there than in Goodland. It is stated that one person alone contributed SI,OOO to help Kentland along. Goodland won by the small majority of 12.05 votes over the 65 per cent required by law. The following is the vote by townships: For Against Total Grant 504 40 444 Beaver 364 30 394 Iroquois 272 154 426 Jackson 214 12 226 Lincoln 190 14 204 McClellan 50 2 52 Jefterson 24 546 569 Washington 95 101 196 Colfax 54 32 86 Lake 67 37 104 Totals 1834 969 2803 Kentland is located In Jefferson township, Goodland in Grant, Morocco in Beaver, Brook in Iroquois, Mt. Ayr in Jackson, Rose Lawn and Thayer in Lincoln, and Lake Village in Lake. Washington township adjoins Jefferson on the north. Whether the matter will rest here or not is hard to tell. The majority in Kentland are willing to let this election decide the matter, but there are some who have declared their intention of contesting the matter in the courts, and if this is done the county seat may not be removed for years to come, and then some other town may finally get it. The following dispatch from Goodland tells their story of the election. GOODLAND, Ind., June 9. —Not onethird of the people of Goodland had any idea that Kentland would lose out in the countyseat election, Saturday. On the face of the returns, Goodland has won by nine votes, nine more than the required 65 per cent of the total number of votes cast. It is possible, but hardly probable, that the canvassing board may make a change Thursday, and, so far as the result of the election is concerned, Goodland is the countyseat. When the polls closed Saturday night the people telephoned all over the county to learn the result. It was well understood what this town would do, but what aid Brook and Morocco would give was in doubt. Suddenly there came a light, rattling noise from the west. It was the indistinct report of guns and the explosion of giant crackers. A red rocket glared in the western sky. “If Kent ain’t a celebratin’, I’m a goat,” shouted a citizen, with a tone of indignation in his high pitched voice. There was no mistake about it. Word came over the telephone that Kentland was celebrating. It thought it had won. A telephone message came from Morocco. The “missionaries*’ who had gone to that place had done their work well. Another message from Brook told of disaster to Kentland, and the last that anyone cared to hear was that in Kentland itself twenty-four votes had been cast in favor of moving the county seat to Goodland. Then this town broke into a delirium of joy. Men shouted and hugged each other, and fairly bellowed with excitement. Women and girls rushed about the streets singing the glad news, boys and children added to the general hubbub. Whistles blew drums were pounded. Great bonfires leaped up in the streets; guns cracked and fireworks crashed until the air was thick with the heavy smell of saltpeter. The town never had such a time before, and a good deal of it was kept up yesterday, if it was Sunday. Real estate is higher already, and rents have been increased. Goodland’s population will grow, and some of the citizens see the place the great metropolis of the northwestern part of Indiana. The name of Goodland seems to have been suggested by its surroundings. It is located within two miles of the Benton county line

and a mile and a half from the line of Jasper county. The land upon which Goodland is now located was disposed of at United States marshal’s sale in 1856, for $3 50 an acre. Now the land in the vicinity of Goodland is valued at from SBO to SIOO an acre. When the Logansport & Peoria road was opened for traffic, a cheap building was put up by section men. The station was called Tivoli. In 1861 Timothy Foster laid out the village of Goodland. The town made rather slow progress for five or six years, the surrounding lands finding little sale, and several crop failures adding to the general depression. In 1868 Abner Strawn, of Ottawa, 111., went into the real estate business at Goodland and brought a number of buyers from his own and other sections of Illinois. From that time the village advanced, The State Line division of the Pennsylvania and coal branch of the Chicago & Eastern Illinois are the two railroads that pass through the town. In 1868 Goodland had ten houses and fifty inhabitants. Now it has 1,250 people. It has two large elevators, one with a capacity of 300,000 bushels of grain; it has one of the largest poultry houses in Indiana, and one store that does $150,000 in business a year. It has four miles of gravel streets, an electric light plant, splendid schools, fine churches, a newspaper—the Goodland Herald and Journal—in fact, everything that will go to make a good county seat town. Now, if the canvassing board does not change the result, Goodland’s cup of bliss is running over.