Birmingham age-herald., 1894-11-17
ALABAMA'S BRAG CITY,

Hon. Patrick Walsh in the Augusta, Ga. Chronicle.
 The members of the Southern Associated Press met last week in Birmingham, and it was matter of qualification to find Ala bama's brag city on the upgrade once more after six years of trade depression. Birmingham has had phenomenal growth, even for boom city. In 1870 the land now cultivation of cotton and corn. h ten years it had been transformed into one of the most substantial and modern cities of the whole south. It is regularly laid, many of it's streets are paved with Belgian blocks, it has many imposing edifices, it's churches and public school buildings are commodious and of modern architecture, and altogether it is an attractive city.
 Brmingham's growth was so rapid and the increase of real estate values so fabulous that when the reaction came and the boom was over the decrease in values and the consequent depression were correspond ingly severe. But Birmingham is estab- lished on a solid basis for wealth and pros- perty, and though her boom days are happily at an end there is every reason to has passed through her period of depres- sion and is now entering again upon an era of growth and prosperity.
 Birmingham cannot help but be a great city. It is in the midst of the three great factors which enter into the composition of
  stone are all in the immediate vicinity of the city, and pig iron can be made more cheaply in Birmingham than anywhere in the country. Now, basic steel is being made from pig iron in Birmingham cheaper than Bessemer steel can be made else- where, and the steel era of development iu Alabama is expected to be greater than that which followed the discovery of the cheap manufacture of pig iron. Jefferson county, of which Birmingham is the county seat, has twenty five hot blast coke furnaces, with a combined daily capacity of 2570 tons, or nearly a million tons per annum. The county produces 90 per cent. of the whole output of the state, $10, ,000, GOO in value, or one-third as much as the entire cotton crop of Alabama. The tonnage furnished to the railroads from the mineral products of Jefferson county is said to be three times as much as the en- tire cotton crop of the south. Her coal fields and iron ore deposits are inexhausti- ble, and the output of her mines aggregates 25 ,000 tons day. Birmingham is the cen . ter of the commercial region, and the pay rolls of her industrial concerns aggregate S1 ,500, 900 under normal conditions. She has twelve banking houses with a com bined capital and surplus of S2, 500, ,000, two en- terprising and influential daily newspapers, besides number of weeklies, and every re- source, facility and condition for the mak- ing of great city are hers.
 In the manuSacturture of iron and steel as in the manufacture of cotton goods, it is no longer question whether tbs south can compete with the north, but how long can the north compete with the superior facilities of the south. With the revival of the commerce of the country the iron section of the south is obliged to develop rapidly and substantially, and the time is not far distant when Birmingham will rival Pittsburg in her wealth and popula- tion.