Page:Micheaux - The Conquest, The Story of a Negro Pioneer (1913).djvu/203

 the highlands near Cuernavaca. A party from Hedrick, by the name of Van Neter, built a hotel fifty by one hundred feet, with forty rooms, and during the opening and filing made a small fortune. The house was always full and high prices were charged, and thus Amro prospered.

During the month of April the promoters succeeded in having the governor call an election to organize the county, the election to be held in June following. The filing had been made in April and May, and as conditions were, no one could vote except cowboys, Indians and mixed-bloods. In the election Amro won the county seat, and settlers moving into the county were exceedingly mortified over the fact, having to be governed eighteen months by an outlaw set who had deprived them of a voice in the organization of the county. As Amro had won, it soon became the central city and grew, as Calias had grown, and in a short time had a half-dozen general stores, two garages, four hotels, four banks, and every other line of business that goes to make up a western town. Its four livery barns did all the business their capacity would permit, while the saloons and gamblers feasted on the easy eastern cash that fell into their pockets. In July the lot sales of the government towns were held, but only one amounted to much, that town being farthest west and miles from the eastern line of the county. This was Ritten, and under a ruling of the Interior Department, a deposit of twenty-five dollars was accepted on an option of sixty days, after which a payment of one-half the price of the lot was required. Here it must be said