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Show r j Real Estate Review g& II ' , I I predicted a year ago, without revelation or jj ' tservation, mat by the first day of January, I I ; ; i ' 1G8, the real estata Bales in Salt Lake City I n . ft would reach fifty million dollars, j ! I ; v , .; I said at the time there were many in these 1 ,f J! parts who would scoff at the prediction and jeer ' ' 1 1 . at the predictor, and there were many who did. ;,'&. A part of that prediction has been fulfilled, and 1 J JjL'ic its entire fulfillment will be within the time limit. V' i? I Sales of real estate for 1900 have been very I J f jj large. I regret that a compilation is not com- j ; "i . pleto and the exact amount cannot be stated f . ' 5 I said then that two real estate booms would i I ! 'jjjjl " jjj meet in Salt Lake City, one a national boom, " ' -j i jig brought about by the continuation of general j prosperity, the other a local boom, following the ! I 5 "j , Jjj doing of the mighty things the going on here, 1 4 j v or, then, reasonably certain. Wo have realized ; .'!' measurably in both instances. I f 1 h, , Wo have had, as a result of this general pros , 'r ' perity, steadily advancing values throughout the ; ; ; year, and the tone of the market has kept apace. ; ' j J il But wo did not really receive our fair share of ' ; ' ,. the national real estate boom; there was a little ' l j1? too much distrust of Utah, caused by the agita- ( 5 ' il tion over religion in politics here, to give us i "I ''' a place in the race, for investment money, with ; I ', t'j'j other western cities. Seattle and Los Angeles, i J i 1 ' on that account, got all of theirs and some of ours. ) y . f They have grown amazingly during the year, j i 'j , whereas, while wo have grown, the growth as J ,' ' '.j the result of outside investment has fallen much i . ' ' , j ; below what we were really entitled to. How- ! I i tijii I ( everi what wo did get was so much to the good, P i I and,' pieced out with the beginning of the local M iS II boom, leaves little reason for complaint of the i j, . iil i good year just going out. I ' ffl ' Tne local uoom ws somewhat "delayed, but j 1 1 fyjjjj none the less welcome; it lagged along, most exasperatingly, and threatened at times not to come at all, but Mr. Newhouse caught sight of it, and brought it in, and now we have it, and are likely to have it for a long time to come. The local boom was due a year ago. It was all ready to set In, with the announcement of the expenditures for railroad and smelter building, and enormous mining operations, contained in the greetings of the year 190G. But it needed something in the way of a local reception. It waited at our gates for some of our men of money to show their confidence in it, and in the city, by investment in some of the cheap property prop-erty lying around loose. This they did not and would not do; the only thing they did was to raise prices and hold on to their money. The Real Estate Association, always optimis tic, always working, always confident of the good time coming, coaxed and scolded in vain. They could not open the local eyes; they could not stimulate local investment. A few homes were bought and a few strangers dropped in and picked up cheap corners; but real estate activity there was none worth mentioning. It was the wonder of the real estate men that this was so; they could not explain the local apathy. They could not understand why with a great city here guaranteed, local money would not rush into real estate investment. God only knows when the real movement would have started if Samuel Newhouse had not reached out his master hand and demonstrated by enormous purchases of inside property, and the adoption of enormous building plans, that he was willing to risk his reputation as a financier, and his money on the proposition that here was to be one of the great internal cities of the country. It only needed someone to touch the thing off and Mr. Newhouse did it. Within a day after the announcement of what he intended to do there was a stiffening all along the line, and Salt Lake'f. long delayed real estate boom found itself fairly on its feet. The sales for November and December have been very large. Their aggregate, plus preceding sales during the year, leave no more of the predicted pre-dicted fifty million dollars for realization than can reasonably be expected that 1907 will cover. Of course, what we have is only the commencement com-mencement of what we are going to have. Salt Lake City cannot be stopped now. The circumference circum-ference of the circle of investment will not long be drawn around the country bounded by First South, Fourth South, West Temple and State street. It will widen day by day and before long will reach the outskirts, accelerating prices as it goes, and, by spring the lands lying about the city will be platted and be selling rapidly in lots to investors who want tq speculate, but who cannot can-not take in more expensive locations within the settled limits. There will be a whirlwind of general investment invest-ment by spring. The big fellows are making the money now; but the little fellows are going to have their turn pretty soon. The more you put into your stomach, the larger becomes your abdominal ab-dominal rotundity; the more the center of a city grows, the larger grows its circumference, and so as the center of Salt Lake swells, Salt Lake will swell. The circumference of investment will widen day by. day, until the present settled limits are reached, and then money making, for the masses, In the buying and selling of addition property will become general, and then well then, you bet, everybody will have money and automobiles and diamonds and all such things. About that time, we'll get our pay, for smiling and holding on, during all the long years, that have flofi, since we came liere, with rosy cheek and a shock of hair, and started in, to bet our II iiJ I 1 1 A money and nerve that what God had planned God I lip H ! would fulfill, and that right hero, Mormonism or I f f , no Mormonism, Aztecism or no Aztoclsm, would I sl Jl ; ' 'i stand some day, a city as strong as a giant, and Kit I 1 as benutIful as anv fr'"v tuat 0v0r emerSQd from f '"'if J - 1' 1110 Perfumetl depths of lily, to drlye away sorrow I j jlj; ! ' ; with the touch of her magic wand. I ,' I And about that time, dear old neglected, much I , ip J ' scoffed at, but ever living Popporton, will come f Into her own, and be smiling with her beautiful I :M ' i . $ homes In a balm of sunshine, on tlie smoky, mud- (,,P ) hi " !; dy, unkempt city, that grovels at her feet. : ' I f'f, , It is not just the thing to speak lightly of the r 'M ! ; ' tlead' but' nernan8 1 wil1 be fr8Iv0n for saying, I , !.j that the failure of Salt Lake to have good suburbs I M ; J f. ' and to spread out beyond the limits that Brlgham p ; 1 ; ' Young defined, is almost entirely due to the ' , : wretched system of street car service, with which j p , . ; ; ! the people have been inflicted for many years. I :" 1 ' j . Perhaps, no event of the dying year furnished so , ; great a stimulus for real estate activity, as the : Ji'; ' purchase of the street car system by the Harriman WM I interests. The day that deal was- consummated i ' , A was a red letter day In Salt Lake's history, and, ;W ? i ' It when it was known that Mr. Bancroft was to j'nr :. 1$ take the system in hand and to modernize it, at II n oost of $3,000,000, there was great rejoicing in " i' jl Salt Lake City beyond the power of pen to do- - ',, . 'j scribe. ' i It will take a while to put down new rails and . .. get new cars and establish new rules and train ; i jlj , '; the operators, but it will all be done and the end ?'j.fl of it will be that there will be thousands of for- i.'Jj ; I . ' tunate dwellers out on the shining heights where the air k is pure and the sunshine is. But, Mr. Harrlman's purchase means more to thoughtful men than the rebuilding of the Salt Lake street car system It means that he never would have put his money in here unless he intended to employ em-ploy the great forces at his command to the upbuilding up-building of the city, generally. With his great system of railroads, and, with his ability to operate op-erate them to the advantage of the large centers, it will be easy for him to make this city one ot groat population and importance. The beginning of this is seen now in the great terminals and passenger and freight stations which are going In on the west side. But there are other railroad interests doing much for Salt Lake City. The Western Pacific is pushing out into the gold and silver beyond of Nevada and- California pushing out to take on the traffic of our ever increasing trade with the Orient. The Moffat road is still coming, and is much nearer than it was a year ago, and the Gould system is to crown its great purchases of terminals, termi-nals, with a new depot of enormous size and beautiful beau-tiful architecture. I said, a year ago ago, the business center of the city would change soon, and be moved to the south and east. How much of that prediction has been fulfilled in the last year? Has not Third South and Main the call now? Will not the new buildings to bo built in that neighborhood prove that old locations can not hold business forever. Would it not have been better, for the values and future of upper Main street if long ago the owners of frontage there had replaced the old shacks with buildings more modern? is upper. Main street to share the fate of Fifteenth streot in Denver, which would not read the hand-writing hand-writing on the wall, until it was too late, and through the indifference of its property owners i to good improvements, went down in gloom while Sixteenth and Seventeenth grew into great i thoroughfares? What is to be the future of Salt Lake? The future is a great land. We cannot go around it in a day, nor measure with the eye its boundless 1 area. But Salt Lake may look towards it, with confidant hopes and expect from it a realization of every dream. The city is geograprically stationed to become great. It is already a railroad center, but will be a greater one. It has about turned the 100,000 population point; and, when a city has 100,000 people it is hard to keep track of it after that. The crops of the country were worth a thousand million dollars in 1906. Money is bursting tbrougn the walls of the banks all over the land. We are getting into new ore bodies in Utah too tremendous tremen-dous to be discribed. The epidermis is being rolled off of Nevada and under it, in the rhyolltes and andesites, gold and silver is being found and from many other directions comes the promise of tribute. So let us cheer up and all stand together and encourage investments, and be hospitable "to the stranger and be good citizen. If we do these and are good to each other, there will be no failure here in the making of one of the proudest cities in all' the west. |