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METROPOLISVILLE is only a memory now.
The collapse of the land-bubble and the opening
of railroads destroyed it. Most of the buildings
were removed to a neighboring railway station.
Not only has Metropolisville gone, but the
unsettled state of society in which it grew has likewise
disappeared—the land-sharks, the claim speculators, the
town-proprietors, the trappers, and the stage-drivers have emigrated
or have undergone metamorphosis. The wild excitement of '56
is a tradition hardly credible to those who did not feel its
fever. But the most evanescent things may impress themselves
on human beings, and in the results which they thus
produce become immortal. There is a last page to all our
works, but to the history of the ever-unfolding human spirit
no one will ever write