Bound for Alaska

Bound for Alaska

 

April 20,1897 – Started from Ottawa, Putnam County, Ohio, at 1:16 pm; arrived at Chicago at 9:20 pm. Found good board at reasonable rates.

 

April 21- reached the fiftieth milestone on the journey of life kind providence has watched over me thus far. What awaits me in the future we shall see, or someone shall. Brought tickets, I say tickets because the party was made up of two, a Mr. J. T. Dallas, a young man of 22 years of Ohio State University. Paid $ 57.30 each for tickets to Tacoma, Wash. Left Chicago at 11:22pm.

 

April 22- Arrived at St. Paul at 3:15. At daylight could see the mountains of Illinois and Wisconsin. All along the banks of the Mississippi River is very mountainous and looks to be very poor land. The river of late has been very high, several miles of track being washed out, making traveling dangerous. We had to go very slow so as to avoid upsetting into the river. It looked quite scary as we went along. On board was a woman in great trouble trying to smuggle her pug dog on board. She succeeded.

 

April 23- Found us in North Dakota. Nothing much to be seen but snow. Drifts eight feet deep. Saw one horse on a hillside nearly covered over. We crossed the Missouri river, which was very muddy. All streams are high, making it very dangerous to travel. The land was anything but inviting, stock thin and seemed to have suffered, and they would get on the track, so that the train had to stop often to avoid running them over; had to get off and clear the track in order to proceed. Saw several colonies of prairie dogs.