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Muscatine North & South Railroad Company

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The Cost of the New Railroad

 

There has been a good deal of guessing on the cost of the new M.N.& S. road. During the discussion in this office last Tuesday a Grandview subscriber and taxpayer said that he was going to take stock for the amount of his tax paid to the road and that if stock were demanded and received by all tax payers they could come near controlling the road. This was on the basis of the $32,000 to be paid by this county and the $66,000 by Muscatine County. The $98,000, he thought, was very close to a half the cost of the road.

 

If this were true the tax payers would not likely get control because they would not all get the certificates. But it would seem the estimated cost of the road had been placed too low. The Journal of Tuesday contains the following on this point:

    In a talk with President Stewart of the M.N.& S. Railroad the other day, he informed us that there was expended on the road when the track was completed to Muscatine the sum of $336,000. It will require to bridge ballast and put the road in good order, together with it's equipment of cars, etc., and additional expenditures which will bring the total cost up to $450,000. This is the amount of the bonds that have been issued by the company. President Stewart, however, thinks the road will when fully completed be worth $500,000 to $600,000. The road is owned by the M.N.& S. Railroad Company as now organized, and while it has a twenty-five year contract arrangement with the Iowa Central, it is not in any sense owned by that company.