Muncie growth, Hemingray listed

What Five Years Have

Wrought.

A live, wide-awake city is guaged [sic] gauged considerably by its public im­provements.

Five years ago, Muncie, the Queen bee of the gas belt, was, comparatively speaking, a place of no de­cided improvements, yet the streets were regarded as being very good, the sidewalks of an average and the business blocks on an equality of cities of similar size in regard to wealth and population.

The object of this article is but to give a short resume of the improvements that have been made during the past year, but under the circumstances, it is but fitting that something be said from the day that natural gas was discovered, Nov. 11, 1886.

A little over five years ago, Muncie was regarded as being one of the best county seats in Eastern Indiana, yet there was nothing to make it so but a class of farmers who till the best soil that lies with in the boundary of the state and in Delaware county.

At the above time our city, which contained but little over 5,000 souls, with our mud sidewalks, never dreamed that within the short space of five years miles of stone would be laid on nearly all the prin­cipal streets, making them the most substantial of any city in the gas belt, if not in Indiana. Muncie prides herself on her elegant sidewalks, and covets comparison with any city of similar size, no matter where situated.

It has been carefully estimated that during the past five years fully 2,000 dwellings have been erected in our city, among the number there being at least 600 built this year. Some of the residences that have been erected during the past twelve months are of the most elaborate prevailing perhaps Greek architect­ure designs.

In the great and rapid progress of growth in wealth and population the citizens have more than kept pace in erecting dwellings that are a credit to places many times larger than Magic Muncie, but being of an active disposition they could hardly do otherwise.

Muncie points with pride to her residences owned by J. H. Smith, W. W. Shirk, Dr. J. W. Garner, James Boyce, Charles Boldt, G. W. Maring, W. E. Hitchcock, C. E. Adamson, J. J. Hartley, H. A. Winans, M. D. Goodlander, W. M. Marsh, C. H. Church, D. A. McLain, Jacob Stiffler, A. A. Wilkinson, J. W. Heath, and dozens of others, all of which are beauties.

Again it is but proper to speak of the many business blocks, collectively, that have been built since the king of fuel was first brought into active use in this city.

Who would have thought sixty months ago that there would be erected in Muncie "The Anthony" at a cost of $85,000, the Willard, Troxell, Central, Smell, Galliher, Seitz, Winans, Wise, Lawrence, Larph, McKinley, Goddard, Long, Turner, Bower, Klopfer, Boyce, Branch Bros., Little, and dozens of other blocks, and besides Wysor's new opera house that will be when completed one of the most magnificent structures of its kind in the country.

While our growth has been phenominal, it first must be attributed to natural gas, and next to the locating of Ball Bros., Maring Hart & Co., Hemingray, Port, Over, Nelson and the Muncie Glass Works; also to the Muncie Nail Co, and Novelty Works, the Pulp Mills, Kelly Hominy Company, Architectural Iron Company and other good factories.

Do you wonder why Muncie has become one of the best cities to Indiana, and by far leads the procession of any town in the gas belt? A place of one-third its present also five years ago, with every prospect of trebling its population during the next two years! It is simply wonderful and is hardly to be believe to be so, yet it true.

The cost of improvements since natural gas was first discovered amounts to far up in the millions, with the outlook for the future far better than any time since the discovery of natural gas.

Muncie is not given to boasting but we make the assertion that when any other city in the gas belt makes the improvements Muncie has in sewers, streets, sidewalks, electricity for lighting purposes, and water works, it will cost the tax payers at least $1,000,000.

It is calculated that the money put in dwellings and business houses that have been built in this city during the year 1891 will amount to more than $1,000,000, which if placed on top of each other in silver dollars, would make a pile more than six miles high, or if laid side by side would reach about forty-five miles.