The Davenport Daily Gazette

Superior City,

Our fellow citizen, Henry Zeigler, has just returned from Superior City, and inasmuch as many of our citizens have been induced to think of going there to make investments we give them the benefit of his observations.

He says it is the poorest place for speculation he has ever seen. No city of any importance can ever be built there, because there is nothing to sustain it. The soil is not worth tilling, being very thin, cold and rocky, and it could not be got ready to till short of a quarter of a century if it was worth it. It is so completely covered with stunted cedars and pines, that it is impossible for a man to walk through them. In addition to this, the prices of property there are fabulous—the people are crazy with bad liquor most of the time, and are consequently insane on this subject—asking from twelve hundred to five thousand dollars for lots not worth from one to five cents, and are consequently selling to nobody but each other, and then taking other lots in payment. In fact the lots are such a character that Mr. Zeigler says he would not give five acres of the meanest land adjoining Rock Island or Davenport, for the whole site of Superior City, or any other quantity of land in that country. So he returned home without making any investment and has resolved to invest all his loose change here, being fully convinced that there is no better, if as good a prospect, for a profitable return anywhere in the country.—R. I. Adv.

Mr. Zeigler is evidently disgusted with the boom of Superior. A couple of Davenport gentlemen visited the spot last Autumn on a tour of inspection, and the result of their observations can be found in the correspondence of the Gazette at that time. That speculation runs extravagantly high in that region, no one can doubt—in fact, the prices for property are enough to scare the boldest operator. But to say that the land is valueless, or the point not susceptible of development, is indulging in an extravagance of depreciation not warranted by the facts of the case. There are mines of iron and copper of the very richest quality along the shores of the lake; plenty of elegant timber for sawing—enough, we should think, to supply the prairie country further south for generations to come; and, wherever clearings have been made, crops have been produced unexpectedly successful in their character. Superior Bay is a beautiful sheet of water, accessible to steamers and other craft, six months in the year, and has the advantage of being the extreme point of navigation west. Undoubtedly there is a great deal of bad whisky about Superior, and enormously high, and "landlords are met moderating; but for all that the place will be of great importance.