On Feb 27, 1908, the Ridgeway Journal published an article titled “501 Car Loads of Stock and Grain Shipped from Ridgeway in 1907”. The article claimed that 1907 “was a prosperous one for the farmers of this vicinity and that Harrison County farmers produce far more than was consumed”. The report was made by the Burlington agent for Ridgeway and represented everything that was shipped from Ridgeway that year.
Ridgeway farmers shipped 214 car loads of livestock including 139 cars of hogs, 70 carload of cattle and 5 of horses and mules. They also shipped out 287 carloads of surplus grain after feeding all the livestock of which there were 60 cars of wheat, 150 cars of corn, 75 cars of oats and 2 cars of hay.
Twenty carloads of eggs were shipped from Ridgeway along with 2000 pounds of butter and 18,000 gallons of milk and cream. “The gardens, truck patches and orchards also provided far more than the demand of home consumption” and growers of Ridgeway gardens and orchards shipped 50,000 bushels of potatoes, 500 bushels of tomatoes and 15,000 pounds of apples, peaches, pears, and honey. In addition to all this, Ridgeway growers shipped out hides and pelts, chickens, dressed meats and poultry, tallow, furs and game. All this “proves that Ridgeway is one of the best shipping points in Northern Missouri.” “It must be remembered that this represents the shipments of ‘surplus’, as the government designate it, from only one of the seven railroad shipping points of Harrison County and therefore, of course, does not represent a third of the total shipments of the county.
