Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Powell) [PAGE 531]

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490

History University of Illinois

out of debt. It has an area of 395,000 acres of land. The assessed valuation of its real estate is about $4,000,000—its real value being about three times that sum. The assessed value of its personal property for 1865 was about $1,800,000, making a total of about $6,000,000. The tax levied for county purposes for 1865 was only 33 cents per $100; and the whole State and general school tax was only 72 cents per $100, -making a total taxation only of about one per cent, for all State and County purposes. In order to pay the annual interest on the bonds proposed to be issued by the county, it will require only an additional tax of five mills on the dollar upon the property valuation of 1865. There are few counties in the State which embrace so little land unfit for cultivation, or a body of land as a whole susceptible of more efficient and productive cultivation; few that have increased so rapidly in population and material wealth, or in which the rate of taxation is so small. The City of Lincoln, the County Seat of Logan county, is situated on the line of the Chicago, Alton and St. Louis Railroad, about equal distance between Springfield and Bloomington. Laid out in 1853 and 1854, it has attained a population of 4,000 and has risen to prominence as one of the largest contributors .to the shipping on the line of the Chicago and St. Louis Railroad. The City is entirely out of debt, and the tax levied for ordinary, city purposes for 1866, (aside from its revenues derived from other sources) was only six mills on the dollar, and less than | | per cent on the property valuation of 1866 will be sufficient to defray the annual interest to accrue on the bonds proposed to be issued. The city is located in the centre of the county; is surrounded by lands of the finest quality, and adjacent to three fine streams of water and overlying beds of coal which it is believed can be successfully and profitably worked. As the best evidence of the value of the city bonds, the citizens of Lincoln have offeredto the State the choice of three fine farms, one of 350 acres on the north, one of 440 acres on the south of the city, one of 640 acres on the east of the city, all of which lie within one mile of the court house, and for which the owners have agreed to take in payment said bonds of the city, at a price in neither case greater than the sum subscribed by the city, and have filed their agreements to this effect in writing, with your committee. These farms