A Few Facts Concerning Jasper County, Mo., and Her Cities
To the Editor of  the Globe-Democrat:

Carthage, Mo., December 19, 1876 -
The largest immigration to any part of Missouri at this time is going into Jasper County and her mineral regions. Even in midwinter covered immigrant wagons can be seen in pairs and by the half dozen. Webb City, where the new and very rich diggings are located, and where every one in a certain locality finds mineral at a depth of from forty-five to fifty feet, built fifty houses in one week, including some good two-story frames, and now numbers 2,000 inhabitants, and cast 500 votes at a recent election. She is building, and has now under roof, a very substantial school-house, thirty-four by sixty two feet, two stories high, with four large and four recitation rooms. Webb City smelts about 100,000 pounds of lead per week, and ships seventy-five carloads of zinc ore for the same time.

JOPLIN, incorporated five years ago the 2d of July last, numbers 10,000 inhabitants, and polled 1,500 votes in the Presidential election. The Joplin papers have not a word for their new neighbor. Some of the miners are leaving Joplin for Webb. Houses and other buildings are being moved from Baxter Springs, Chetopa, and other points in Kansas (over forty miles) to Webb and rebuilt.

CARTHAGE, the county seat, is one of the most beautiful and enterprising cities in the West. Within her limits and immediate vicinity are eight
flouring mills, which turn out strictly No. 1 flour, mostly made from extra choice winter wheat. She now has machine-shops able to make and repair all the machinery in the
mines. The largest and best ice crop ever secured in Carthage (taken from Spring River) was harvested about the 19th and 20th inst. On the 18th the thermometer
indicated 2° below zero. Carthage has four sound banks.

A DRAWBACK
Carthage would be in a very bad predicament if ever she should be visited by a conflagration. She has a Babcock Extinguisher, but I fear that in a dry time like the
present, this would prove of but little avail. Why can not this city, especially in the vicinity of the square, be supplied by water stored in, say four large cisterns, one at each corner of the square? It would prove the best investment and a great improvement in such a case as the one under consideration. Good coal is selling for 13c per bushel in Carthage and at Webb City. Mr. Webb has rented his diggings for twenty years at a royalty of $7 per 1,000 pounds of lead, and from this source his income per week amounts to from $500 to $1, 200. Quite a plum. C. W.  M.

St. Louis Globe-Democrat, (St. Louis, MO) Friday, December 29, 1876; pg. 7