A VALLEY SPEEDWAY

Boom for Its Establishment is Fairly Under Way.

ON MULLANE LAND S.E. OF TOWN

To be Built by the Prince Speedway Company of Omaha - Finished in Sixty Days.

Yesterday several representatives of the Prince Speedway Co. of Omaha, including Mr. Prince, the practical builder, in company with Geis Botsford, secretary of the Des Moines Chamber of Commerce visited Valley Junction and at a hastily gathered meeting of citizens at the city hall, Mr. Botsford laid before them the proposed plan to build on the level ground west of the city a mile automobile speedway by the company, which is a Nebraska corporation.

The association will hold four interstate meets each season, including 300-mile races, and at least one motorcycle meet. The track would also be available for minor events. It will be a mile in circuit, built in the shape of a mile race track, with elevations at the end, to enable machines to make the turn at the high velocity attained in racing. It will be constructed of wood, and contain over ninety carloads of lumber and some twenty tons of iron spikes. It is desired to have it ready to hold the first meeting July 27th.

An organization has been formed at Des Moines and 200 membership tickets at $50 each - $10,000 - sold, and the money deposited till the track is built. The company has also deposited in a Des Moines bank a $10,000 forfeit.

Nothing is asked of Valley Junction except to cinder or gravel - or both - the road from the Grand avenue bridge through town until it meets the county gravel road at the west city limits, which is something that should be done in any event. This improvement will cost probably $3,000. A committee at once volunteered to get not less than fifteen reliable citizens to guarantee the expense, by private contributions, and the amount was pledged within an hour. The city treasury probly has money enough to make the fill west of the bridge. The condemnation proceedings have already been started and the jury will fix damages June 5. It will require all the men and teams that can be secured to put the road in order in the sixty days intervening. And the building of the speedway will employ than a hundred carpenters, laborers and teamsters.

Three parcels of ground were under contemplation by the company. One of them is the Raaz land south of the city pumping station, another is on the Hippee land, and the third the Mullane tract south of the Rock Island tracks. Late in the afternoon Mullane signed an option on terms perfectly satisfactory to the representatives of the company present, and they went last night to submit the matter to the principal financiers at Omaha, apparently expecting to get his approval without delay. If that is secured, they expect to start work about next Monday, as there will be no time to lose.

The enterprise, if it materializes, will be a big thing for Valley Junction. It is to be hoped that it will succeed. Let everybody boost for it.

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