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Marion
County has an area of 434 square miles, embracing 277,760 acres of
magnificent lands, with a population of 30,000, and having a
Mississippi River front of thirty miles. The river is crossed by
two magnificent iron railroad bridges-one of which, in the
northern part of the county, being over one mile in length, and
the other, at Hannibal, in the southern part of the county, the
center of six railway lines, including two main trunk
roads-connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific.
The county lies full in the center of the great middle belt of the
Union, reaching from ocean to ocean, which composes the great
commercial, financial, railway and manufacturing centers; the
great dairy, grazing, grain, and fruit districts; the great
universities; the finest school systems; the densest and strongest
population; the most advanced civilization, and the equable mean
of latitude and climate for the American continent.
THE
TOPOGRAPHY
of Marion County is singularly beautiful, with its
river front, partly of bold rugged bluffs, rising abruptly to a
height of one hundred to two hundred and fifty feet, outlined by
cliffs, crags and palisades, and abounding in dells, gorges,
canons, glens, grottoes, caverns and ravines, crowned with a
wealth of forest, whose drapery of green. and crimson and gold
lends an indescribable charm to the landscape.
About forty per
cent. of the county is open prairie, and the sixty per cent.
originally timber is now half in cultivated farms, leaving thirty
percent of the county in forest, and abounds with the finest
springs.
THE CLIMATE
is unsurpassed. Here is the happy mean between the
extremes of southern heat and northern cold. The summer is long
and pleasant, with dry, cool nights and breezy days. The winter is
generally
mild, dry and open, much of it like a northern Indian summer. An
elevation of seven hundred feet above the tide, with no swamps or
lagoons; the superb natural drainage of the county; the abundant
pure gushing water from the numerous springs, and the prevailing
life-inspiring west winds give as high measure of general health
as may be found in America. The snow fall is usually light and
rarely lies long. The annual rain fall is about thirty-seven
inches, and the season admits of field labor ten months in a year.
THE SOIL
in
the bottoms and valleys is a very rich alluvial at from five to
ten dollars per acre, and improved soil, from three to ten feet
deep; is very pliable and farms from ten to forty dollars per
acre, easily managed, produces enormously and is practically
inexhaustible. The surface
soil of the uplands is from one to three feet deep a dark, rich
loam upon the prairies, and in the timber it is of a dark yellow
and redish color which for productions ranks with the best soils
in the west.
Underlying
this county is the famous and ever fertile loess subsoil, which,
by analysis, is found to be identical with the loess deposits of
the Rhine and Nile valleys. It absorbs water readily and retains
moisture to a remarkable degree. It is known to be among the best
soils in the world for grain, grasses and fruits. Deep plowing and
thorough cultivation is all that is required to make this land
bloom with good farms.
The
wheat fields of Marion County have for the last year shown the
capabilities of this soil in a wonderful way. Many a field of
wheat grown upon land that has been cultivated for forty
successive years, without any kind of artificial manure has given
from twenty to forty bushels per acre. The
production for the county for the year 1879 is estimated at eight
hundred thousand bushels. Corn, however, is king of grains here, as
blue grass is of grazing fields. Scores of corn fields have yielded
ninety bushes of shelled corn to the acre. This
county annually produces from two and a half to three million
bushels. Other
crops, such as oats, barley, rye, flax, broom corn, tobacco, hemp,
sorghum, beans, peas, buckwheat, millet, Hungarian grass garden and
field vegetables generally
have a very luxuriant growth.
This
county is well adapted to the growth of blue grass, timothy and
clover making it a superb region for stock-raising, and it is estimated that not less than 1,600
car loads of fat cattle and swine, valued at $1,200,000, are
annually exported from the county.
There is no finer sheep country
in the West than the beautiful hills and rolling prairies of
Marion County presents.
Horses and mules are largely raised for
export. About 250 car loads find a ready market annually, Missouri
being the largest mule-raising State in the Union.
This is the home of the fruit-grower. It lies in the fruit
latitude, and has a superior fruit climate. The river bluffs are
especially adapted to grape-growing.
FINANCIAL MATTERS
The county debt is merely nominal and taxes
very light, being a trifle over one per cent.
SCHOOL FACILITIES AND CHURCHES
Marion is one of the choice
counties in the State of Missouri-now ranks as the fourth or fifth
county in the State. It has sixty churches, sixty-five public schools and four colleges, and is rapidly advancing in everything
that goes to make communities prosperous and happy.
This county
has a permanent school fund of $50,000,the interest of which,
together with a four mill tax,
and the public fines and penalties, give ample support to the
public school system.
PRICE
OF LAND
Unimproved
lands in this county can be purchased at from five to ten dollars
per acre, and improved farms from ten to forty dollars per acre.
TOWNS AND VILLAGES
Palmyra, called
the “City of Flowers,”-a beautiful place of
3,000 inhabitants-is the county seat of Marion County,
and contains eleven churches, three colleges and several
excellent public and private
schools, a fine
court house, two banks, two printing offices, two
newspapers, two hotels, two railroad depots, two
excellent flouring mills, a fine packing house, several
important manufactories and numerous prosperous
and successful business houses engaged in a large
commercial and local trade.
The
business men are active, intelligent and energetic, and in
some instances are rapidly accumulating handsome
fortunes.
Hannibal, the
largest city in Northeast Missouri, with a
population of 15,000, stands in the center of a group of counties
remarkable for fertility, natural
advantages,
enterprise and increasing trade.
Opposite are
Pike and Adams Counties, in Illinois, connected by a wagon
bridge and a ferry, with one hundred
thousand acres of the richest garden
estimated at eight hundred thousand bushels reclaimed from overflow by a
substantial
levee. It controls most of the trade of Ralls and
Pike Counties, in Missouri, and other counties, giving it
great facilities for wholesale and
retail trade.
The city is beautifully situated
in a remarkably picturesque
locality, the mighty river washing its front and flowing
at its feet, with hills in the background more
beautiful and numerous than the imperial
“City of the Seven Hills” could ever boast, forming
an irregular amphitheater, while its
salubrious
air expands the lungs and gives activity, energy and longevity to
its inhabitants. Its
growth has been healthy, substantial and continued.
The assessed valuation of its property (less than
two-thirds real value) is three million dollars. The
rate of taxation (including school tax) is about one
and a half per cent.
The town has ample educational facilities - six
ward public schools, several private schools, one
high school, and one academy; able and accomplished professors and teachers; value of public
school property, $39,000.
There are thirteen churches, with ample accommodations for all.
The three flouring mills manufactured in 1879
175,000 barrels of flour.
One hundred and fifty thousand barrels of the
best white lime known in the markets were manufactured here in the last year, one firm having nine
patent kilns.
The lumber business in the numerous yards and
planing mills is immense. Sales in 1879 amounted
to over 125,000,000 feet. One mill and yard employ
two hundred hands; another firm employ in their
various departments three hundred and eighty-five
men, and sold last year 30,000,000 feet of lumber.
The ice business is an important industry.
Hannibal has six railroads, running in all directions, five of which terminate here, the other being
a through line from St. Louis to St. Paul.
Hannibal has new water works on the most approved plan furnishing water excellent in quality
and abundant in quantity, having a reservoir with a
capacity of a million and a half gallons; has ten and
a half miles of pipe and seventy-five hydrants distributed throughout the city, with two steam fire
engines affording most ample protection against
fires, giving us as low insurance and water rates as
are enjoyed by the large cities.
The streets and dwellings are well lighted with
gas. Street cars on the principal streets. The
business houses and many dwellings are supplied
with telephone communication. A mercantile
library and reading room has been established.
Three daily and three weekly newspapers and a
large job printing establishment are located here.
The climate is salubrious, alike free from the long
winters of the North and the scorching summers
of the South, and only six miles from our prosperous little city is one of the best health-giving
mineral springs in America, with nearly four hundred acres of beautiful wooded grounds attached,
which grounds are skirted with one mile of river
front and one mile of railroad. It is just one hundred miles from St. Louis, and ere long it will be
made a resort of prominence. |
