The old, settled, humdrum East knows little or nothing of the teeming growth and ceaseless activity of the thriving West.

It cannot understand how Western communities—those that have natural and acquired advantages—double and quadruple their population in a few years time, and mount, with a leap,
from pretty villages to prosperous and important cities and commercial centres.

People of the East forget that, with them, development is a thing of the past; while, with the West, it is a vital issue of the present.

Cities of the East have found their level; cities of the West are merely in a state of development.

The City of Beatrice, situated on the beautiful Blue River and capital of Gage County, Nebraska, furnishes a striking illustration of Western municipal development.

Seven years ago it was an insignificant frontier village; today it is a city of twelve thousand population, beautiful as Dante's fair Florentine, teeming with commercial life, and buoyant with the certain assurance that, within a few years, it will be distinguished as the second city in manufacturing
importance of the great State of Nebraska.

This is the result of local confidence, large enterprise, and the city's superior advantages as a place of residence and commercial mart.

Beatrice has had no "boom." The city's wonderful growth is due to natural causes only. It is situated in one of the most fertile valleys of the West, in one of the oldest, richest, and most thickly settled portions of the State, and possesses a climate that is neither excessively hot in summer nor frigidly cold in the winter. 

Beatrice may be said to have sprung into existence with the completion of the Burlington & Missouri Railway line.  This great artery of trade and commerce, which furnishes transportation for, and direct communication with so many towns and cities of the
West, finds in Beatrice its most promising commercial and industrial patron, and in the agricultural resources of contiguous territory, a never failing rendezvous of traffic.

Three gigantic railway systems of the West – the Chicago, Burlington & Quincey, with its B & M leased lines running in every direction; the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific and the great Union Pacific Railway, together with nine such lines, give the city unsurpassed traveling and shipping facilities, and make it a railway centre of exceeding importance.  Other lines are now building, the new Union depot will soon be erected, and beautiful Beatrice is now in direct communication with every section of the country.

Of course, the city proper is kept even pace with these improvements.  Costly residences and fine, substantially constructed stone and brick blocks and public buildings are seen on every hand.

There are thirteen churches, elegant public schools, street railways, water works, electric light plant, telephone service, broad, shaded streets and avenues, and handsome parks and squares.

The finest hotel and opera house in the West are now being built by U. S. Senator Paddock, whose home is in Beatrice.

These things, taken in connection with a cultured, enterprising, progressive citizenship, awaken confidence in and invite capital to this thrifty city.

What most impresses a visitor, however, are the surpassing advantages which Beatrice offers to jobbers and manufactures.  In this respect Beatrice stands without a rival among its sister cities.  It has an unlimited and inexhaustible water power; building stone of finest quality and enough for ages; unfailing deposits of potter’s clay of unsurpassed quality; cement rock which experts pronounce equal to the finest Portland Cement, and lies in the very centre of the great producing and distributing belts of the West. 

Among the mills and factories already located at Beatrice are the following:  The largest flouring mill in Nebraska, one of the largest wind mill and pump manufactories in the West, probably the most extensive canning factory in the United States, sewer pipe works, machine shops, barb wire and carriage factories, foundries, planning mill, large paper mills, cornice works, marble works, grain elevator, etc., etc.

Yet Beatrice asks for more.  An annual production of 100,000 bushels of flax seed by Gage County alone calls for an extensive oil mill.   As the centre of great stock growing region, Beatrice wants and must have packing houses.  A general mill for the manufacture of starch, oatmeal, hominy, etc., is also needed; while all the vast territory surrounding this populous city is crying for wholesale and jobbing houses in every line of business. The demand for these, and many other industrial and commercial enterprises, is urgent.  No other city in the West can offer investors, capitalists, and manufacturers the grand inducements now held out by Beatrice.

The city points with pride to the uninterrupted prosperity of its various industries, all of them being in successful operation and in receipt of constantly increasing business.

Property valuation is reasonable; though, with the development of the city, realty must advance rapidly in value and offers rare opportunities for the investment of capital.

Banking facilities are first class; educational, social, and religious advantages good, and, back of all these considerations, is an energetic Board of Trade, that is willing and anxious to extend all possible aid and information to those's who may wish to invest brain, labor, and capital in Nebraska’s “Queen City.”

Every inquiry addressed to the Beatrice Board of Trade will receive prompt recognition.

North American Review Advertiser, No. CCCLXXIV, January, 1888