View source for Recollections of Old Milestown (Post Mortem)

 A POST MORTEM

Writing of only forty years ago, in this age of rapid development, is writing very close up to date, in so far as history is concerned, but in the individual life it seems an almost immeasurable gap between then and now. Many who were then full of life and hope have gone "over the divide," children have grown to be matured men and women and the shadows of age are fast gathering over those who were the active spirits of the Milestown of these "Recollections." But they have lived to see a Milestown far beyond their expectations. Those who have lived here during that period have had to change their predictions on the future of the city more than once since the days when we won incorporation with a somewhat questionable population of fifteen hundred. Though we forged ahead steadily, it was not until the coming of the Milwaukee road that we began to talk hopefully of a possible five thousand. With the influx occasioned by that event we passed the five thousand mark without knowing it and have more than doubled that aggregate since then with every material prospect bright for the future. What we may achieve in the time to come is anybody's guess, but there is one thing that we old-timers know -- and that is that we are no longer the happy-go-lucky, care-free "kamerads" of the early days, and one purpose of writing these "Recollections" was to portray that life before it had faded into the forgotten past.