The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1874-12-10
SCHEDULE.
The Memphis and Knoxville
Road and Cheap Coal. Pu-
IasIzi a manufacturing
CITY.

a correspondent OF the Memphis Ap-
peal writing from Nashville makes some
suggestions i'm regard to the NJ. & X. r.
r. which should not escape public at
tention, and particularly in Pulaski.
We can now get coal from the Alabama
mines at less than four dollars ton.
Let us build our road through Fayette-
vile to Cowan, and then we will have
sources of coal supply, the Alabama and
the Cumberland Mountain mines. We
will be within 80 miles of the Sewanee
mines now open, and we learn gentle
man proposes to give land having a val
liable coal mine on it to the company.
But the main advantage this road Will
give us in the iron business, is that it
will enable us TO get iron ore cheaper
than either Nashville or Chattanooga
can get it. We can get cheaper coal and
cheaper iron ore than either of them,
and it is no stretch of imagination to
say that Pulaski with this Memphis &
Knoxville Road will become the most
important place for iron manufactures
in Tennessee. Have we energy and pub
lie spirit? If we have We can make
Pulaski a city. This is no fancy sketch !;
it Is solid reality. If we are deficient in
energy and public spirit, we will drag
on In the same old way, improving a lit
tie but very slowly. Shall we seize this
opportunity or shall we let it pass
But TO the letter:
"Why, let me ask, is coal so much
higher in Memphis than in this city |?
A family, which consumes 100 bushels
or forty barrels of coal in Memphis, has
to pay five dollars and twenty cents
more than a family consuming the same
amount in Nashville. If the city Of
Memphis consumes two millions of
bushels of coal per annum this amounts
to tax of one hundred thousand dol
lars, III Memphis coal sells even at
seventy cents per barrel) over and above
what the same amount of coal would
sell for in Nashville. Is there no reme-
dyP With the Memphis 81 Knoxville
road completed to Winchester or Cow
an, coal could be delivered in Memphis
at five dollars a ton, or twenty cents
bushel. A saving of five cents on each
bushel of coal used in Memphis, would
amount to one hundred thousand dollars
"A year, if the city consumes two million
bushels; This in ten years would be
one million dollars, One-third of the
whole cost of the road from Memphis to
Cowan, on the Nashville q Chattanooga
road. Why Memphis has not had this
road put under contract to the Tennes-
see river long since, passes my compre-
hension. The cotton alone which this
road would secure to Memphis, that she
does not now and never will get until
this road Is built, would yield to the
city as profits sixty thousand dollars
per annum, at two dollars per bale. /
have seen men from Giles, Lawrence
and Wayne counties, and they are anX-
iOus to go to work on the road, if they
could get any encouragement from
Memphis. AS an evidence of what Is in
that country, will state that this year
m enterprising northern man came to
Lawrence county, and made fifty bar
rels of blackberry wine, and derived a
large profit from it. That is the great
iron region of Tennessee, now neglected.
From Henderson station this road would
divide into two branches, one going
through Wayne toward Knoxville, and
the other through Lexington and Cen
terville to Nashville. We will be con-
stantly looking abroad when our su-est
road TO wealth is in our own State. The
whole of Middle Tennessee looks green
with wheat and rye, and if the farmers
next spring will only plant such ground
as they have prepared well and will al
so restrict their expenditures, times will
be much easier next fall than they have
been in years. We buy too much in
proportion to what we make. This is
the real cause of most of our financial
troubles. If the northern States will
contract the currency and make money
scarce our only remedy is to quit buy
ing from them, and then we Will not
need so much money"