Title: Penny-an-Acre Empire In The West
From the dust jacket flaps: A magazine article giving a glowing description of the lands west of the Taking this pamphlet as a point of departure, historian Edgar I. Stewart has Who was right? After almost a century, Mr. Stewart assesses the situation
A hotly debated subject throughout the nation in the 1870's was the worth--
or the worthlessness--of the western lands, especially those proposed to be
traversed by the Northern Pacific Railroad. Explorers, surveyors, army
generals, and even financiers from Berlin and Vienna became embroiled
in the controversy.
Missouri River initiated proceedings. General William B. Hazen wrote a
letter of contradiction to the New York Tribune which brought an indignant
reply from no less a personage than General George Armstrong Custer.
Hazen and Custer were old adversaries, and the "dignified brawl" was on.
Hazen retorted in a pamphlet entitled Our Barren Lands that the large
expanse of territory proposed for the railroad route was "not worth a penny
an acre."
brought together various documents, many of them rare today, setting forth
the arguments on both sides, with himself as a sort of modern-day interlocutor.
Included is the extremely rare Hazen pamphlet, the Haas Report of 1871
(containing the opinions of the Berlin and Vienna banking experts), a letter
written by W. Milnor Roberts giving practically a section-by-section analysis
of the territory, and the report of the newspaper correspondent who was on
the Yellowstone Expedition of 1873 and has his own opinion of Custer's
observations. Even as late as 1957 historian Walter Prescott Webb added
a few comments.
and delivers an unimpassioned verdict.
Collected and Edited By: Edgar I. Stewart
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK
Copyright: 1968, stated First Edition
Size/Format: 6 1/4" x 9 1/4", hardcover with dust jacket, ex-library,
268 pages.
Condition: Good+/Good. Ex-library with usual markings, stickers, card pocket.
Very clean & crisp pages, no other markings. Minor tape stains on covers where
a dust jacket protector, no longer present, had been taped down. Dust jacket front
flap is price clipped, there's edge wear, and a 3/4" closed tear on the bottom front.
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