The Forrest City times., 1899-07-28
Boom Begins Early.

St. Francis levee board and who is now in Memphis on business in connection with the affairs of the board, told n reporter yesterday that developments in his section of the St. Francis basin had been greater within the past year than before in long period, and most of this improvement he attributes to the work being. done by the Choetaw X Memphis Railroad,
 "The people of Memphis have no idea," sad Mir. Russell, "what an advantage the completion of that line will be to them. They have been told of the wonderful richness in resource of the Oklahoma and Indian Territories and.the sections of Arkansas west Of Little Rock. but right at their door they will get tributary 10 trade, which is by no means to be despised, and which they will find most profta- ble to the commercial interests oi the city.
 "Take, for example, the lumber interests of the sections contiguous to Forrest City; they are almost undeveloped, and it has been be- cause of tho fact that the logs conld not be gotten out of the swamps. and further, because transportation and discrimination in the way of freight. rates has been against such enterprises as sawmills. Now we not only know that independent line of railroad will be runh trough the section, but the completion of the St. Francis levee makes it poss . bic for the timber to be gotten out.
 "Any number of sawmills have gone up within the past year, and their appearance here and there seems to be continual. At Black fish smart lumber man from the North has erected him a sawmill, and he conceived the idea of dam. ming the river at that point so that he would have good pond from which to handle his timber. He found that 1t was possible for him to back the water up into tho bayou for fifteen miles, so he proceeded to do if. This means that all along tbe water course for five miles out from shore on either side he can haul his logs to the bank and then carry them with a tlttle oil engine to his mill at an expense which is almost nomrnal, whereas heretofore 1t has been necessary to take chan 'ces on bad roads for the full fifteen sor twenty miles at an expense that figures quite part when one comes to count profits.
 "I think this one man has a for tune all by himself, and it will come 10 him before it will be pos. ,sible to exhaust the supply of ii m- Der along the waters course. The strange thing to me is that some of us who live over there have not thought ot this dammlng scheme Isbefore now and reaped ihe same harvest which he is sure to. get. This is only one instance where the prospects for a sawmill over there are excellent. z, "But returning to the Choctaw < Memphis road Its contractors are doing wonderful amount of work between Little Rock and Memphis, and the effect of the money being expended has been most beneficial ito our town. From Forrest City to Memphis the grade is being raised, ] understand, anywhere from six to eight feet, and ] want to tell you that the Improvements which are now in progress would astound many Memphlans if they would go over the road.
 "How about Forrest City; are industrial improvements going on there"
 ''I should say they arc," contin, ued Mir. FusseIl-and, by the way, | hV 10 bh O1l tDO .ofimprovements. "Swift X Morris, a Chicago firm, are putting in one of the largest and finest cotton seed
 oilmllls in the South. It is an s0- ton iron and steel girdled mill, and the seed shed now under course of ~constructlon is 80 by 300 feet, and the other buildings are in propor- ton. The plant has it's own water works and electric light plants, and even tho buildings are furnished with automatic sprinklers. The firm purchased twenty acres of ground for the plant, and from thls you can gain some idea of the ex- tent of the enterprise. Six homes are being erected by the company for the operatives, and not less than 100 hands will be employed" | "Any other new plants or impor-