Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 September 1879 — OVER THE RIVER. [ARTICLE]

OVER THE RIVER.

With Whittling, and Shoutings The ity Lot* Utked hr, Tkc Marrow Cnmyc into tkc • City. [From Delphi Jeorwai.] June 28th, 1865, in the city of Indianapolis n handful of enterprising men met and organised the Indianapolis, Del phi and Chicago Railway Company. While it ia true that other men and other places desired and earnestly sought the bedding of the proposed road yet it can not be denied that its staunchest, meet determined and untiring friends were in this city. Since the organisation of the original company fourteen years have quietly passed, and with their flight our people have raftered defeat after defeat in their favorite scheme of placing our beautiful tittle*eky in closer and direct communication with our capital and irith the great eity of Chicago While that hope is not yet realised yet they do #ita&m tangible evidences of the final realization of their-aims. Last Thursday afternoon the first train ran into the corporate limits of the city. The Wabash bridge was so nearly completed as to salely bear the train, and so the track was quietly laid to a point about one hundred feet this side of the canal and a number of our citizens were invited to ride on the first train over the bridge and into the city. At 6 o'clock p. m. Col A eoman, the indefatigable manager and builder of the road, announced tp his invited friends that they were ready for the trip. Two cars were speedily filled and Superintendent Millikan, who was, for the occasion, stationed at the throttle of the engine, gave the lever a gentle pull and the train, with its anxioua load of human freight moved slowly out upon* the bridge which stands fifty feet above the river bed. A 1 moat with bated breath the people stood quietly watching until the middle of the river was reached, when a feeling of security displaced the dread and fear of accident, and then a shoot went up that will linger in memory for many years with those who were aboard the train. The bridge kas safely! passed and in a few minutes the train l was standing inside the city limits of! Delphi. The bridge is of the Howe I truss pattern, and is almost a marvel of strength and grace, built by Messrs. Freeman & Co.', of Toledo. No less substantial and good looking are the trestle approaches designed by Will. Garis, chief engineer, and built under the supervision of George Matkley, the efficient superintendent of bridges. Among the seventy-five or more who had the courage to join in the trial trip we noticed Mayor - Walker, Councilmen Knight, Lath rope, Graham, Fisher. Jackson and Haugh; Mrs. Knight, Mrs, Cox, Misses £lta and Stella- Dimmick; Messrs. Dr. Richardson, James and Charley Kilgore, L. B. Sims, Judge Gould, James P. Dugan, Vine Holt, Isaac Jackson, A. M. Eldridge, A. B. Crampton, of the Times, J. W. Griffith, Isaac Griffith and Dr. ADgel.

At eleven o’clock and thirty minutes, Monday, the track was laid to a crossing of the Wabash railway, and the interesting event announced by a prolonged snort from the whistle of the Alf McCoy. And thus the question as to whether the road will ever reach Delphi is finally settled. Ii is here, and we believe it has come to stay.

Monday afternoon Geo. Guiliford, Chaa. Groe, Isaac Jackson, Col. Yeoman, C. M. Knight and C. Angel, Jr., went over to Rensselaer to receive the fatted calf tendered by Messrs. McCoy, Thompson, A. Parkison and Wm. Parkison for the celebration to-morrow. They returned with their charge yesterday at five o’clock p. m., and were met at the train by a large crowd of our people. The calf was certainly a fine specimen. He was unloaded at ths foot of Franklin street, trimmed with * flowers and evergreens and led through the principal streets, after which he was led in front of Wollover’s gallery and a photograph taken of him. He seemed too fine an animal to kill, but- then the day must be celebrated and the dinner committee is shert of meat.