Knoxville Whig and chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1875-1882, 1875-12-01
INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT EAST
TENNESSEE.
Will We Do Our Part In Securing Rep.
resensatisn at the Centennial?
VIII Our People Neglect this Golden
Opportunity?

NASHVILLE, Nov. Is, 1875.
Hon. John II. Crozier.
MY DEAR SIR feel solicitous to
know what part the city of Knoxville
will take in the approaching Centen-
NAL. While in your city few days
since, / was struck with the evidences
of thrift and life end the album
dant indications of live and energetic
people, while its surroundings give
| promise of rich rewards to industry
and enterprise. Take map and look
at the location of Knoxville and you
will find that IL occupies the longitude
nal center of the great valley of East
Tennessee valley teeming with the
fairness of the earth and blest with a
climate so genial and so tempered by
the trend of mountain ranges that in
it almost all the products of both North
and South may be grown remunera-
lively. To the northwest lies the
Cumberland table land, the depository
of all the coal in the State, while in
the opposite direction, to the southeast,
is the grand range of the Unaka, in
which lie embedded iron ore enough to
cons ruct every railroad in the world,
build every vessel and iron every
wheeled vehicle. In addition to all
this rough wealth, upper East Tennes-
see has the finest marble in the world
and beds of zinc untouched, besides
workable veins of lead and rich depos-
its of kaolin. The timbers of John
son, Carter, Washington, Cooke and
Sewer counties is magnificent. In
the deep gorges of the Unaka and on
the highest SUBMITS / have measured
trees more than IT'S feet high
and twenty feet in girth
And to work up the raw
material you have unequaled water
power superadded to your vast supplies
OF coal. The raging Ocoee flows in
raging torrents through rocky defiles
twelve or fifteen miles falling in that
distance nearly a thousand feet. The
Hiwassee, the Little Tennessee, the Big
Pigeon, the Nolachucky, the French
Broad, the Clinch, the Holston, the
Watauga and the Elk Fork with their
numerous continents rush down from
mountain heights and debouch into a
valley plain smiling in all the wealth
of field and forest. These streams sup.
ply the power of a hundred Merrimacs
and yet the Merrimac turns hundred
wheels busy in the service of man,
while these much larger and much
better are suffered to fret them
selves against rocky banks or glide
in sparkling currents over stony
bottoms and hemmed in by stony
banks with scarcely an effort made to
curb their power and make them
available to work up our raw material
into valuable marketable products.
am at loss to understand why a peo-
pie so sagacious in other respects should
suffer decade after decade to pass by
without making some efforts to utilize
such immense natural advantages. II
we can afford to transport our raw
material North, pay profit to the
northern manufacturer and retrans.
port the finished product for our own
consumption, still more can we
afford to manufacture. In truth
we are too poor not to manufacture
The present per capita produc'
tive capacity Of our population is 500.
The per capita productive capacity OF
the people of Massachusetts is $500
Now If we could harness our streams,
build manufactures of various kinds,
utilize our coal and iron, our copper,
lead, zinc, cotton, wool, and timber in
giving employment to all classes Of our
citizens, this productive capacity could
be made to equal what it Is In Massa-
chusetts, or we could have for each in
habitant an annual increase greater by
1904, and for the State an increase
greater than we have at present by
$685., 900, 900, @ sum lager than the
entire taxable property of the State.
This 10 our surest road TO prosperity
and to permanent relief from the in
Oubus OF debt that gloweriDg checks
all our efforts tending to @ restoration
of our broken fortunes.
But you will pardon this depression
The era Is, In my opinion, one of the
most important in our history. It Ia
one In which the battle for life and
mastery Is waging everywhere. The
period OF bankruptcy with others may
be the period OF our opportunity. The
failure OF manufacturers in the East,
the depression Of the iron interests In
England and Pennsylvania, the vast
number Of skilled artisans thrown out
of employment, and the great array oil
industrial talent seeking employment
make this the most favorable time thai
ever occurred in the history of our
state for making known our great
natural advantages for manufacturing
Notwithstanding the disasters which
have fallen upon sli the leading in.
dustries North, we can point with
pride to the fact that nearly all our
cotton mills, furnaces and FORCES are
still in operation, thus demonstrating
the fact that, though pressed for money
our establishments are still able Il
keep running on full time, and this
in consequence of the cheapness OF the
raw material which our State SC
abundantly supplies. The community
which endures longest in such periods
Of financial distress will, If true To
itself, secure in the future manufac,
turing greatness.
Now, what IL the duty of Knoxville
at such time? Foremost In impor-
lance, is making known TO the world
her position, prices OF labor, the rich
ness Of the surrounding mineral de.
posts, water-pOwer, means of trans
portation, and everything of interest
10 those DESTROYS of embarking capital
la manufacturing. The world must
know what you have, beforeit can ever
manifest the slightest interest in your