Wyoming along the same parallel of latitude to the Pacific ocean is a distance of some 800 miles. Thus it will be observed that the geographical position of Wyoming is unexceptional. It has a rich agricultural State, Nebraska, joining it on the east, and the mining, farming, and grazing State of Colorado on the south, while the northern line of the Territory is within about 50 miles of the Northern Pacific Railroad, at its nearest point, in Montana, on the north.

"Salt Lake City, the great midway town between Omaha and San Francisco, is only 100 miles west of Wyoming's western limit."

IRRIGATION IN THE TERRITORY.

The Rawlins Journal thus refers to the progress made in reclaiming arid lands in the Territory of Wyoming by means of irrigation:

"A twenty-five years' residence in and acquaintance with Wyoming convinces us that the valleys of the Platte, Snake, Laramie, Powder, Big Horn, Medicine Bow, and other large streams are very easily irrigated, while the soil, especialy of the bench lands, is very rich, producing more grain to the acre, which weighs heavier in the measured bushel than grain grown on the best lands in any eastern State. The well known firm of Coe & Carter, of Omaha, have all the surveys made and will in the early spring begin work on a ditch taking water out of the Upper Platte, near the mouth of Brush Creek, in this county, that will irrigate and bring under cultivation a scope of country fifteen miles wide by thirty-five miles in length.

"Still another company of eastern capitalists have a preliminary survey of a ditch from the mouth of Big Creek, on the Platte, to this city, the estimated cost of which is $1,000,000, and the amount of land to be reclaimed is 1,000,000 acres. Ditches have been taken out of Snake River by the Douglas Company, which reclaim several thousand acres of splendid lands. All this is in Carbon County, which is considered the barren county of the Territory; the counties of Laramie, Albany, Converse, Crook, Johnson, Fremont and Sheridan being admitted agricultural counties. That a very large area of Wyo

ming is susceptible of irrigation and cultivation there can be no possible doubt in the mind of any person acquainted with the Territory. We predict that in five years time the purely agricultural population of the Territory will be nearly twice as large as the whole population at the present date. Therefore give us a State.”

The Denver Republican in a recent issue published an interview with Mr. George L. Aggers, who had just visited the oil fields of Wyoming, from which the following extracts are taken :

"I have been interested in the Wyoming oil fields for over five years and never felt more sanguine than I do now over the great future before that country. There never has been any doubt in my mind that oil existed there in large quantities, and the development of the past three years has proved that I was right. The only question has been, 'How will we get it to market?' and that question is now satisfactorily answered by the number of railroads building into the country.

"The Chicago and Northwestern is already completed and runs a daily train to Casper, on the Platte River, and the Burlington and Missouri has a force of men surveying and laying out their road up the North Platte, being at present at work about 20 miles west of Fort Laramie. I think, from appearances, it is their intention to emulate the recent action of the cable company of this city and steal a march on the Northwestern, thereby securing the right of way up Casper Creek from the town of Casper and right through the oil country. They have already outgeneraled the Northwestern on the route to Buffalo, and when I passed through there they had a large force of men and about one thousand teams at work near Fort Robinson. From that point the Burlington and Missouri is building a road in a northwesterly direction through the northeastern corner of the new county of Converse and thence through the rich farming country lying around Buffalo.

"At Casper, the new oil town at the end of the Northwestern, everything is booming. The lots have been sold and many substantial buildings are going up. By spring that town.

will have a population of over 2,000 souls, and will be the headquarters and supply point for that whole oil country. People are coming in there every day from the east and going from there by team to the oil fields around Ervay's. While I was there a party of eastern capitalists arrived from Omaha on a special car and went on up to look the oil country over, with a view of buying up a large body of land and putting in drilling machinery, as they realize that petroleum is the fuel of the future, and they expect to ship it into Denver, Omaha, and all the large towns and cities of the west.

"The Burr well, at the mouth of Poison Spider Creek, has resumed work, as has also the well of the Chicago and Northwestern company, which is being put down near Ervay's ranch. An immense amount of assessment work has been done the past summer through that whole country, many of the companies and individual owners improving the roads and applying it as assessment on their claims, so that now the finest roads in the Territory are through the Rattlesnake district.

"The coal mines at Glen Rock are worked to their fullest capacity, and are shipping twenty-five cars per day from the mines, but can not get men and cars enough to supply the demand. As the railroad builds farther west all the coal lands along the Casper Creek and south forks of Powder River will be opened, and the coal industry alone will cut no slight figure in Wyoming's prosperity.

"Yes, Wyoming has a great future before it, and the time is not far distant when a railroad will be built from Denver north into the Territory, through the beautiful Platte Valley, tapping the oil and coal fields of the Rattlesnake district, up through the timber and agricultural lands of the Big Horn, and on through to Butte, Mont., thus giving Wyoming an outlet to the coast with Denver as the central shipping point for that whole country."

*

Your committee respectfully submit that the facts herein stated, taken from official reports, and the exhaustive statements made before the committee by the Delegates from Arizona,

Idaho, and Wyoming (Messrs. Smith, Dubois, and Carey), printed herewith, fully establish the claims of the respective Territories to statehood.

The committee therefore report the bill back without amendment, and recommend that it pass.

All of which is respectfully submitted.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS

BY GOVERNOR WARREN.

FELLOW CITIZENS: You have been pleased to induct me into the service of the people of Wyoming, as your chief executive officer, with marked and imposing ceremony; and, for this, I am truly grateful; but, if I understand the genius of this meeting and demonstration, you have assembled less to honor the individual, and more to pay tribute to a principle, and celebrate our material progress to show our appreciation of home rule, and to hail coming statehood.

As long ago as 1856 an important movement was commenced to establish that of right all legislative, executive and judicial officers of a territory should be selected from actual residents thereof, but like all other reforms, it encountered determined resistance.

It was the young and sparsely settled territories without actual representation against the powerful, populous, and ably represented states. After continued effort and agitation on the part of its advocates there was developed among the people a powerful sentiment that an American should in every section of his country be entitled to home rule.

Recognizing this, in June of last year, the delegates of one of the great political parties of our country in convention assembled declared as an essential part of their platform the following: "The government by congress of the territories is based upon necessity only to the end that they become states in the union; therefore, whenever the conditions of population, material resources, public intelligence and morality are such as to insure a stable local government therein, the people