The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1899-09-03
CHARTERED YESTERDAY
ENTERPRISE BACKED BY AMPLE
CAPITAL.
WORK ON THE LINE TO BEGIN At ONCE
Surveyor Are dy Mapping Out the Route.
PhiadeIphians Compose the Compa-
ny. Capitalized at Sl0,-
900 Mile

At last the much-talked-of railroad
from Wilmington to Southport is to
be built
Mai. w. A. Guthrie, of Durham,
came down yesterday and secured a
charter from the Secretary of State for
company composed of Pennsylvania
capitalists, who propose to undertook
the building of the road and that
at once.
The name of the line is the South
port. Wilmington and Western Rail
road"
"You can say from me-" said Major
Guthrie yesterday, that this enter
prise is backed by ample capitai ana
the road will be built to certainty.
The men who are behind it mean busl-
ness and a surveyor is already at
work on the proposed route"
Further than this Major Guthrie de
clined to talk.
While the line from Southport to
Wilmington will be short, about 30
miles in length, it will for number
of reasons be one of the most I'M
portant roads in the State and the
only wonder is that it has not been
built long ago.
Southport, as is well known, has one
of the very best deep water harDors on
the South Atlantic Coast. TO sup
pose that it will be made merely
the terminus of a short local road haul
ing from Wilmington TO Southport is
to sadly overlook the possibilities of the
situation, something that the Philadel-
phia capitalists who are behind this
enterprise are not likely to do.
This thirty mile stretch of road
can be made the seaward terminus of an
east and west trunk line that would
be one of the most profitable coal-carry-
ing roads in the country, line too tap
ping the fine grain-growing and cat
tle-raising section of the Ohio valley.
This can be done, too, by the building
of a surprisingly few miles of new
road.
THE POSSIBLE TRUNK LINE.
The South Atlantic ana Ohio Rail-
road extending from Big Stone Gap
to Bristol, could form the Nucleus of
the great new trunk line. AT Bristol
it could be linked with road already
in operation extending from Bristol TO
Elzabethtown, now owned by the Penn
sylvania Steel Company. AT Elizabeth
TOWN, Tenn, it could be linked Into
the road owned by the Cranberry Iron
and Coal Company, and extending
from johnson City via EliZabethtown
to Cranberry, N. G. Here it could
hook on to q new road already graded
and to be Immediately equipped, ex-
tending to Pinola. From Pinola a link
could be built crossing the Blue Ridge
at Lost Hollow Gap and extending
down the eastern slope of the Ridge to
Collettsyille in Caldwell county, where
it could be linked with the Lenoir and
Collettsyille road, now owned by
Wanamaker and associates, of Phila
delphia At Lef1oir it would tap and
perhaps link itself with the Carolina
and Northwestern, which will bring it
to Lincolnton, where it can weld itself
to the Carolina Central 1.-THE Seaboard
Air Line) and make a straight shoot
for Southport.
This new line could connect at Big
Stone Gap with the great Louisville and
Nashville system, tap the Norfolk and
Western at Bristol. cut across the
Southern system at Hickory and Char
lotte, grasp the two hands of the Sea-
board at Monroe and Hamlet cross the
Coast Line at Pembroke and again at
Wilmington, and plunge into the com
merce of the outside world at South
port.
1t will thus be seen that to complete
a great through line from the West and
Northwest distance of some five
hundred miles-it is necessary to
build only ffteen-mile link between
Pnola and Colleftsville via Linville.
Add to This the thirty miles link be-
tween Wilmington and Southport, and
you have another deep water port and
az coaling station without passing hat
teras. A glance at the map show $
that this is one of the most feasible
and practicable railroad schemes in the
South.
Such new line means much for
North Carolina. 1t means much for its
manufacturing interest especially. rs Il
will put all the piedmont and central
sections of the State in direct, que (
and commercial connection with an
inexhaustible supply of coal equal To
POcahontas or any other coal on the
market 1t turns the coke oven OF
the great Cumberland range into Gran
berry and our other iron ore beds, the
richest in the world. 1t curs the I:lue
Ridge at Lost Hollow Gap, passing
in the shadow of Roam Mountain, or
down by Linville. skirts around old
Grandfather, one of the grandest NOUN
tain routes in the world: crosses the
famous Johns River Valley and blazes
a great industrial highway through the
counties of Mitchell, Caldwell, Lincoln.
Castor, Mecklenburg and ON to tie
sea.
The are the possibilities Of the situa-
ton substantially as nointod ont Iy
this paper some months ago when the
matter was being discussed in rail
road circles. The charter would of
course, in any case, give the company
the power to sell, buy, lease or con-
soidate with other lines, but it is III
together probable that the company
has in mind the making Of the new
road the saltwater end of trunk line
The opportunity is too great to br
missed
1t will be noted that $1,000 per mile
of the stock, or about $4,000, has al