Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1890-08-29
THE PERMANENCY OF VIRGINIA IS
NEW PROSPERITY.

Those who get nervous over the sudden
and rapid development of the resources
within radius Of fifty miles around Staun-
ton. should go back little to the history of
the same development in Pennsylvania
Virginia's history in that respect is re-
production of the experience of that great
State. The charcoal furnaces lying dead
within the radius we have mentioned, and
without it, found their counterpart in the
dead charcoal furnaces of the Lehigh Valley
of Pennsylvania. The manufacture of iron
with charcoal and the wagoning it for
miles, had to go down before the coke and
railroads. There were as many dead fur
naces in Pennsylvania as there werein Viz
ginia. When the railroad came to the iron
region of that State, bringing with it the
coke, the whole scene changed and develop
ment began, just as it is beginning
in Virginia, and Pennsylvania be-
came the foremost iron State in
the Union, dotted with furnaces,
rolling mills, and manufacturing towns.
So it will be with Virginia and her prosper
ity will be as complete and permanent.
Without going to the record it is hard to
believe the rapidity with which this State
is going ahead. Ten years ago Virginia
produced 1916 tons of pig iron. This
year OF 1890 she is producing 302, All tons
an increase of sixteen hundred per cent,
and she holds the second place among the
iron producing States Of the South.
This enormous increase of the manufac-
ture OF pig iron by Virginia must of neces-
sity bring rolling mills, pipe mills, stove
foundries, and nail works. There is no
choice about the matter, they simply are for
ced by the situation to come. The report of
q. S. Labor Commissioner Wright puts in
official figures what had already been accept
ed as a fact, when he shows that in three fur
naces of the North the cost of producing a
ton of pig-iron was over 800 ton; in nine
teen the cost was from SIS to $1S.77 a ton:
in forty-eight, from $12 to $14.9S ton.
In twenty-six furnaces of the Southern
States the cost was from $3.50 to $3.50 per
ton. Among the Southern States, Virginia
can furnish the cheapest iron because her
iron masters can get coke at less than two
thirds of the cost that the far Southern States
have to pay, on account Of cheap freight.
While Virginia uses her own coke the
Southern States have to buy it of her and
transport it hundreds Of miles.
These facts, making certain the perma-
nence of the material development in Viz
glnia, are already recognized in Pennsylva-
MIA. There they are conceeding that they
cannot compete with her, and calling the
railroads to assist them by putting up
| their freight rates. In the last number of
the Iron Age, Mr. J. Wesley Pullman has
letter urging the railroads of Pennsylva-
MIA to come to the relief of the iron manu-
facturers of that State. He says:
''The Eastern Pennsylvania rolling mills
must have mill pig metal of quality equal to,
OF better than, the Southern irons at Southern
prices (delivered), working without profit, or
they will stop losing money in Pennsylvania
and go to Virginia and further South, where
manufactured irons can be made at round
profit. The same is true of the heavy iron
founders, such as cast iron pipe works and the
great bulk of the non-B essemer furnaces make
of Nos. 1, 2 and iron. We must soon expect
to lose the greater part of Southern orders for
bars, plates and sheets. We are already beat
en- in nails. Some of the Albany and Troy
stove founders are now building Southern
plants, claiming they can no longer take Lee
high foundry pigs to tide water, thence up the
Hudson to put into stoves for the general trade.
The Hudson river blast furnaces, except those
on Bessemer pig, are mostly cold, notwith-
standing cheap and good Champlain and
Duchess county ores, and the few stacks still
blowing can hardly live at existing prices"
There is no power, no combination of
circumstances that can keep Virginia back
in the career of progress upon which she
has entered. 1t has been opened to stay
open. The new cities being built and the
older ones being enlarged in Virginia are
as permanent as any similar towns ia
pennsylvania, and have the same cause for
sprlnglng into life-a boundless wealth of
iron with tracks running off to the coke fur
naces. The young Virginians of this day will
when they reach manhood, see in Basic City,
Shendun, Staunton, Buena Vista, Goshen.
WayneSboro, Clifton Forge and Iron Gate,
cities OF from fifteen to twenty thousand
inhabitants. and some of them much larger.
Not only will there be many new furnaces
III blast, but railroads will have been built
to the sites of the old charcoal furnaces
carrying coke to start them up again--for
many OF them are located among the rich
est ores in any section of the country.
The Industries involving iron ora I