March 3,1897--DOWN THE ROAD TO JANSSEN
[name changed to VANDERVOORT]
A new country and new town with bright prospects ahead.
A few days ago a representative of the Star, in company with several others, took a ride on the construction train down the line to Janssen and Hatton Gap. The road leads south from Mena through a picturesque section of country, winding along by gentle curves through valleys and by the side of creeks with occasionally a deep cut through some rocky hillside where one sees demonstrated the costly work done in building the road, and realizes something of the obstacles its projector had to overcome. Occasionally as we rounded a curve or immerged form a deep cut nice farms with thrifty orchards and comfortable buildings would greet the eye, showing what had been done in other days prior to the advent of the railroad, and giving at the same time a prophetic idea, as it were, of what the country would be and look like when the other stretches of valley lands, hillsides and table lands were cleared and planted to farm crops, small fruits and orchards now that the markets of the world have been opened for these products by the building of this great railway from the ice bound north to the sunny and fruitful south by the gulf and sea.
At present stately pines and other valuable timber covers the tillable lands as well as the rock ribbed hills, and at various points along the line huge piles of walnut logs and cedar, ready for shipment to Europe, are to be seen, also large quantities of pile timbers for building approaches to bridges and roads across swamps as well as millions of feet of fine lumber turned out by the saw mills, all bringing cash to the owners and showing that the lands are being gradually cleared for other products.
Twenty two miles from Mena the train makes a long halt at Janssen, the new town now attracting some little attention as the next town south of Mena on the Port Arthur route and in this country. Here is also a pretty place for a town, the site being high and rolling and the streets regularly laid out and cleared of timber. The company is building a neat little frame depot here an it is understood that it will also build a hotel in the near future. A few businesses houses have been erected and two mercantile stores are open for business with indications that others will be built soon, also that a saw mill will be in operation in a short time.
One point of interest connected with Janssen is the close proximity to Hatton, a town attempted to be built near the gap in the mountains bearing that name and where the road passes, it being only two miles distant and of course a rival, if a town can be called a rival that, though on the road, has no station and is not to have any. Hatton has a hundred or more houses and business places, a few built many years ago, all built in a hap-hazard way along a cow path or to conform to the contour of the hillside and the curve of the railroad instead of any laid out streets, yet the people realize that without a station, and one at Janssen two miles away, the name of the town has been changed from Hatton to “Dennis.”
That a nice little town will be built at Janssen to supply the requirements of the country surrounding and being opened up no one doubts, and yet all admit that the logical location for a town, other things being equal, was at Hatton’s gap, it being the only point for many miles in either direction that a wagon road or a railroad could be built or people pass through a long range of mountains. As it is the road is having a hard task to cut its way through to a proper grade, the job not being completed yet, a track having been laid up over and around the cut for temporary use and to carry material to the front.