The Forrest City times., 1899-04-07

we HdNt UccH pciiulttcu W icnu ~
letter to the St. Francis Electric Light
&C.,. from the Bradford Manufacturing
Co., Of Paragoud. 1t will be remem-
bered that Mr.. w. A. Bradford has re-
Gently been in this city several times
with view to locating a wagon mate
rial and spoke factory in our midst,
and had about made arrangements
with the Electric Light Co., to furnish
him power In fact this part of the
arrangement was as good as settled.
And in the event that the Electric
Light Co., furnished power, they
would run their plant night and day,
aud give the town the benefit of an
Electric fan system.
Cooperation. you see, would enable
| both to do business ut a nominal cost.
That's what it takes to get factories
the cooperation of our citizens. But,
as usual, obstacles we're met that have
caused the spoke factory people to
cease negotiations.
They say under date of March II,
1899:
We regret to say that after so
much correspondence we shall have to
give up the idea of placing machinery
at Forrest City. We are in receipt OF
letter from Mr.. Morrison saying that
to get down to the level of the ground
for the switch extension we should
have to come in from the west. and
with fill of 600 feet; we furnishing
the grade, work and ties. This would
be quite an expensive job and the other
switch would not answer our purpose.
We also take into consideration the
fact that we bave been unable to find
any one there or near there that would
contract to deliver any amount of the
stock we use except spokes. which we
could not manufacture there on ac-
count of the high freight rate to our
factory north, as the rough spokes can
be bought just as cheap here as there,
1t is possible that later on some ar
rangement can be made, but wa UNI
derstand the saw mills are paying such
high prices for logs that bolts cannot
be bought at the price We can afford to
pay AS previously stated we regret
this very much, but under the crcum.
stances at present it would not be to
our interest to continue the negosia-
tions. Very truly,
BRADFORD MFG. Co.
So that settles the spoke factory.
This is where business league could
have gotten in its good work. If We
had a business league the difficulties
would have been submitted to them,
and by coming to the aid of the manu-
featuring company in securing the
switch facilities free or at a. nominal
price, they would have been encouraged
to go ahead with their plant. A bust
ness league could have removed the
hindrance to this enterprise easily
enough by donation or otherwise. and
it would have been assured. Its es-
tablshment would be the forerunner
of other enterprises of a manufacture
ing character.
The TIMES is really much discour-
aged at the loss of this factory for such
a to a community trivial cause, but
we haven't time to whine about the
past, and the object of this article is
to put us on guard for the future.
We are informed that the town has
an excellent opportunity to secure an
ice factory. We have heretofore given
our. readers many reasons why we
should have an ice factory and will
not rehearse them now. 1t is sufficient
to say that we have a chance to get
one. The citizens must consider for
themselves whether or not they will
encourage and assist in getting it.
We take the following from per-
sonal letter on these subjects from Mr..
NJ. w, Ewell, secretary of the Electric
Light Co., to the editor:
Now, that we have lost out, at
present, on this enterprise, let's work
that much harder for the ice factory.
| The writer will be in Forrest City next
| tuesday and If the indications justify.
will remain there the whole week in
the interest of getting up stock com.
pany to build an ice factory The
present indications are that the coming
season will be an excellent one for the
manufacturing and selling of ice and
we certainly trust the citizens of For
rest City will not lose interest in this
much needed enterprise AMI allow
NyEne or Mariana to build plant
land shut us off from the small towns
nearby that we should supply. In
fact. we should supply Wynne and
4 Mariana at "A price, that they would
not want to build a plant SO long as we
could supply them.
! We hope that MIR. Ewell will meet
with such encouragement as will in
sure this enterprise, and here we must
leave the matter to the judgment of