Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 August 1898 — Gifford Begins a Railroad. [ARTICLE]

Gifford Begins a Railroad.

The Republican has some time ago* published the fact that B. J. Gifford was probably contemplating building a railroad for an outlet for his many farms in the Gifford district. As to the exact or probable location of his road when he built it, no positive information was obtainable, but there were reasons to believe that he would probably build from a point on the Three I railroad a mile or two east of DeMotte, in a general southeast direction, through the center of his principal district in Barkley and Gillam Tp. The fact that he had bought a pretty closely connected series of tracts of land from his principal body of land clear to the Three I. and even beyond it, gave color to the supposition that his railroad would follow. that route. And he has even bought land along about the same strip, beyond the Three I and nearly to the Kankakee river, as though in contemplat\on of building his railroad on to Hebron or Crown Point. For many months past he has had men getting out railroad ties, by the ten thousand and now information comes that a corps of engineers began surveying a railroad for him, last Monday. They began, not on the Three I road but on the Coal Road, at a point about or 1| miles northeast of Kniman. and are at present running southeast, the destination and reported termination being Hog Point, a place about seven miles from the starting point above mentioned. This starting point is about on a line with (;he probable route above described. A considerable part of the line is along side a big dredge ditch, constructed by Mr. Gifford, and the bank of which furnishes a ready-made railroad grade; and it continues some distance further southeast than Hog Point. It may therefore be taken as definetely settled that Mr. Gifford’s railroad will follow a general northwest direction from about the center of his district, and will be built very soon, for at least far enough to give him a railroad outlet. It is also very probable that he will soon build northwestward as far as the Three I road, and, sooner or later, much farther southeastward, perhaps as far as Morion.