The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1890-04-11

push anu purse-tell the story. Auey
have brought twelve railroads, twelve
or fourteen blast furnaces, several roll.
ing mills, machine shops and all their
kindred enterprises, and the result is
q Northern city here in the land Of
cotton. A delegate to the Nashville
convention told me that Sheffield,
twenty-five miles up in the mountains,
was nearer the iron beds than Biz.
mingham and had water transpOrta-
tion-which B. has not-and was
going to leave the magic city in the
shade. But the delegate lived at
Sheffield and perhaps he was over san.
guine.
Eighty.seven miles north of Dir
mIngham is New Decatur, boom
town pure and simple. Three years
ago a syndicate bought 5, 45l acres ad.
joining the little village Of Decatur.
They brought a landscape engineer
from New York, a sanitary engineer
from Rhode Island, and an all-round
engineer from New Jersey to boss
them, and then they said, "Go to, let
US build city" So they laid out
their land in parks and streets and al.
legs, beautifully graded and curbed,
and set out shade trees,-the site is a
treeless plateau up from the Tennessee
river,-and put In waterworks and
electric lights. and built street rail-
road, aud school house, and a union
depot, and "The Tavern" Ga hotel
which cost $l4O,OOO). While all this
was being done liberal cash and land
bonuses to manufacturing enterprises
were getting in their work. The
Louisville & Nashville railroad located
SIS acres Of shops there, then came a
freight car factory, an iron furnace. a
cotton compress, iron bridge works,
car wheel works, and Only the young
agent of the syndicate who deluged us
with steady stream of information
during the hour we spent there be.
tween trains knows what else. They
claim 10, 600 population now, for their
new town, ard talk hravely about the
great things the future has in store for
them. But somehow the anchor OF
my faith doesn't take very firm hold
of a town that has been SO obviously
"made." I would think more of one
that. like Topsy, "just growed."
Northern and eastern Alabama,
through which our way to Chattanoo'
ga lies, begins to look more like
Goods country" The pines give
way to hard woods and the soil turns
darker and looks as If something might
grow on it. The farm houses arr
PAINTED once in while, too, and there
are more evidences of thrift. Still il
the fields there is the inevitable
"nigger and mule" scratching lit
tie furrow about three inches deep
and calling it blowing. Away up il
the eastern part of the State we saw ,
white man blowing with two horses
and mans pillow, but he looked
mighty lonesome. The mule seems Il
be the unit of measurement for thing.
agricultural in the South, for they
speak of a certain tract of land as ,
"two-mule farm" "four.mule farm,
or whatever it happens to be- My un
derstanding is that they figure forty
acres to the mule. They call this part
of Alabama the Cereal belt, because
corn and wheat and other things thar
cotton can be raised on it, and it i!
certainly, to q Northern man. much
the most attractive part of the State.
~
The men who marched and in
trenched and starved and fought il
apd about the ugly little village o
Chattanooga in '63 would hardly lee
ognize the place now. I imagine. II
is a stirring, wide awake Northern
city, 200 population, wide pavet
streets, electric lights and railways
blast furnaces and all that. One eighth
of all the people there hail from Ohio
somebody told me, and 1 was prepared
to believe it.
The electric railway runs out fol
three or four miles across the wild,
valley, passing the National Cemetery
on the right and Orchard Knob
whence Grant directed the battle, or
the left, and ending at the foot of Mis-
sionary Ridge, directly below the poin,
where Gen. Bragg had bis headquar
tiers. As We toll up the smooth. steel
slope-just about as long and as sseel
as the slope up Mt. Dread from Ten
nessee street to the State University
we wondered how any Union soldier
ever got to the top alive. "If their
was a man on top Of that hill with I
gun and he wanted to stay there, II
let him stay" said one half of the ex
cursion party, and the other hal
fervently endorsed the sentiment. Thu
lower part of the Ridge is bare bu
along the upper third Off there is I
fourishing grove of young chestnuts
and other trees. The old line of Rebe
breast works, just below the crest o
the Ridge, is utilized now for car
rage drive, and the yellow clay roae
can be seen stretching along the Ridg'
for miles. Reaching the summit W.