NP, NU 2/20/1862

From the Natchitoches (La.) Union
 
February 20, 1862
 
The Grosse Tete & Central Stem Railroads
   An act of the Legislature at its recent session grants to all the railroads in Louisianan, to the stock of which the State is a subscriber, six thousand dollars for every mile of road which shall be graded and made ready for laying the track, payable whenever five consecutive miles are so graded. It is provided that the bonds cannot be sold at a greater discount than five per cent, and that the Governor may compel the proceeds of the sales of such bonds to be used exclusively in the purchase of rails for finishing the sections of graded road.
   By act No. 119 all alternate sections of public lands for six sections in width on each side are granted to the newly chartered road from New Iberia to the Sabine River and to the Central Stem Road from the Atchafalaya River opposite the terminus of the Grosse Tete Road, to Natchitoches and Texas. This land grant accrues to those roads whenever twenty consecutive miles of road are completed. In case of pre-emption or prior occupancy of any portion of the lands within the above limits, the deficiency is to be made up from State lands lying within fifteen miles of the roads. The alternate sections belonging to the State, adjoining those sections which are granted to the roads, are not to be sold for less than double the minimum ??? are they subject to private entry until first offered at public sale. These provisions give the railroad companies the advantage of the increased value which the construction of those roads will necessarily give to the lands lying in their vicinity, as well as an opportunity to purchase the adjoining State lands wherever it is desirable.
   In the two roads which form a continuous road from the right bank of the Mississippi opposite Baton Rouge two hundred and thirty two miles in a northwesterly direction to Shreveport through the most fertile region of central Louisiana, the inhabitants of this city are peculiarly interested. The palpable and visible increase of the trade and business activity of Baton Rouge caused by the completion of about three-fourths of a short road whose western extremity is the Atchafalaya, indicates the greater advantages which will accrue to us when we are put in daily communication with Alexandria,  Natchitoches, Shreveport and the cities of Eastern Texas. There is no richer region in the South than the one whose travel and products will be sent through this city when this great line of road is completed. Instead of a tedious, expensive and uncertain journey by little stern wheel boats over the almost dry bed and the innumerable sand-bars of Red River, travelers will have a cheap, speedy and delightful trip of half as many hours by railroad as the river passage requires days. Those who visited us once a year will then appear among us almost every month. The hum of busy trade will enliven our stores and our levee will be covered with cotton, grain, cattle and the various products of Western Louisiana and Eastern Texas.
   The Directory of the Grosse Tete road, with the seventy-two thousand dollars worth of bonds which they will get by the late act, must finish the road to the Atchafalaya in a very few months -- probably before the end of the coming summer. If the road extends no farther, the advantages of bringing that always navigable steam within two hours travel from us will be very great to Baton Rouge and to those who dwell on the banks of that river for thirty miles above and below. The profits of the road too will be doubled by its completion, and although its business will not when finished to the Atchafalaya be one-fifth as much as when it shall constitute a part of a continuous road to Alexandria or Natchitoches, yet under its present judicious and economical management it will become one of the most profitable roads in the Confederacy. Its net profits for the past unfavorable year of war have been nearly half its gross receipts.
   Twenty-two miles and a half of the Central Stem road beginning on the Atchafalaya are graded and fifteen thousand cross ties are ready along the line of the road. Ten miles more are opened and nearly cleared of timber. The six thousand dollars per miles to which this road is entitled will give it one hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars worth of iron to finish the portion now graded, and in the course of the present and coming year we may reasonably expect to see fifty miles more of the road made ready for the track. This will bring us into direct, cheap and speedy communication with the richest portions of central Louisianan and render the planters of Rapides and of important portions of Avoyelles and St Landry independent of Red River and its pestilent sand-bars, hallows and falls. When the road is finished to Cotile, a distance of seventy miles, the stockholders will be entitled to more than two hundred and seventy thousand acres of wild lands which are among the best public lands of the State. Eighty miles of the road are under contract at fifteen thousand dollars per miles which includes all necessary rolling stock, depots and tanks. Deducting the State aid of six thousand dollars per mile, the road from the western terminus of the Grosse Tete road to the eastern boundary of the parish of Natchitoches will cost the company only seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars -- a road which much earn from six to ten thousand dollars per month from the day that it is completed. The enhanced value of the now improved lands along the route of the road will be far more than the cost of the road. Hundreds of new cotton and sugar plantations will be opened on lands now uncultivated because of being without any access to a market.
   But it is impossible to enumerate or estimate the benefits certain to result from the early construction of this line of railroad. We hope to see it prosecuted with vigor and that it may receive from capitalists whatever aid they can conveniently render.
B. R. Advocate

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