Bridgeton Pioneer

COLORADO ENJOYING PROSPEROUS TIMES

Colorado's population is increasing so rapidly that the railroads entering the state are unable to maintain schedule time in either passenger or freight departments. The influx of people from Eastern states is not 'a tourist season' traffic, but a healthy growth of permanent settlers.

For months past the railroads entering Denver have been taxed to the limit of their westbound passenger capacity, and as these thousands of newcomers must be fed, the freight departments are now feeling the strain. During the month of August alone 33,710 loaded freight cars reached Denver and were discharged here. The major portion of this vast cargo was household goods and food products.

Twenty-seven railroad return tickets good for rides from Denver to almost any part of the United States were advertised for sale by individuals in the small 'ads' of The Post last night. The tickets are being sold by persons who came here on a visit and decided to settle in Denver, but have been unable to place their return transportation with the ticket brokers.

The eastern slope of the state is filling up with settlers who are either purchasing ranch property or going into business. The rapid settling of this territory has had a marked effect upon the commerce of the state at large. Edward E. Hill, commissioner of the Colorado car service bureau, declares in his last report that 1,791 more cars loaded with freight reached Denver during the month of August than for the same month of last year. This heavy freight traffic into Colorado has caused a dearth of freight cars in the Eastern territory and railroads throughout the country are shouting at the Colorado terminal lines for the return of their rolling stock.

Agricultural products throughout Colorado have been above the average this year, and reports of this prosperity have no doubt determined many settlers to come here and found a home. The Colorado corn crop was injured by the lateness of the summer season, but all other farm products and food stuffs are above the average.

The World is Learning About Colorado's Rich Apple Crop.

Colorado fruit is moving East in trainload lots. The apple crop is immense and her fruit is being shipped to every part of the globe, California and England being the greatest consumers of this special Colorado product. Floyd M. Wilson, traveling freight agent of the Missouri Pacific railroad, has returned to Denver from a canvass of the Pacific coast country.

He states that Colorado apples are in great demand in California and that the Rocky mountain product is supplanting the fruit of the coast state. England is just beginning to appreciate the 'red apple' grown in Colorado and that particular fruit is displacing the old-time green apple which has been a favorite article of British diet since the natives of the 'tight little island' became famed as good livers.

This year England is importing more Colorado apples than at any other time in the history of the country. In a nutshell, it can be stated on the authority of statistics which are unimpeachable that Colorado, industrially and commercially, is enjoying an era of prosperity unprecedented in the history of the state. Precious metals are being discovered in new localities almost every week, all the working mines are producing mineral in paying quantities, and the agricultural and fruit-growing sections are sending out their wealth of food products as never before in the annals of Colorado farming.

The season has been particularly favorable to cattle growers and the stock farms of the state are in a condition of splendid prosperity.