The age-herald., 1899-11-05

St. Stephens, Tuscaloosa, Mobie--these are the names of the money centers of Ala bama in days gone blythe acknowledged financial center of the state today is Birm- ingham.
 Early in the century that Is fast drawing to close, St. Stephens, situated on the west bank of the Tombigbee, about eighty miles above Mobile, now only memory and name, was the social, commercial, monetary and political center of the terri tory that afterward became the state of Alabama. It was before banks were thought of in this section, but St. Stephens was an important trading post, was the seat of the government land office, and many transac- tions of importance were consummated there. When, however, the port of Mobile passed from the dominion of Spain to that of the United States, St. Stephens began to decline, and in few years its population and its business had all been transferred to the Gulf City.
 Some years later the financial center of Alabama had shifted to that classic old town on the banks of the Warrior, whose name is so full of pleasant memories to thousands throughout the state. Having succeeded Cahaba as the state capital, and
 
 state university Tuscaloosa had become at an early day the home of refinement and wealth. The legislature, which then held annual sessions chartered the State Bank of Alabama and branches, the principal of- flee being located at Tuscaloosa. With a large capital and with ample powers as to issuance of bank notes, the State Bank for numbers of years loaned out enormous wa of made historic by Baldwin. Merchants and Tuscaloosa for loans, and the beautiful City of Oaks was the fountain head of the states s money supply.
 A valuable contribution to the financial history of Alabama was made a few years citizen of Tuscaloosa Jas. H. Fitts, Esq. In the shape of paper on the old State Bank read at a meeting of the Alabama Bankers association. At each session of the legisla- ture one or more directors of the State Bank were elected, and as the directors passed on the applications for loans, they naturally became very important person. ages. One year certain hotel-keeper in Tuscaloosa, by way of advertising his busi- ness, became a candidate for a bank drec- torshp and was elected The patronage of his hotel was so greatly increased by req son of would-be borrowers stopping with him that his three competitors were com peled to seek directorships also. In due time all were elected and 1t is said that for d year or more the majority of the board of directors of the State Bank of Alabama was made up of the four hotel keepers of Tuscaloosa. Finally, the State Bank be- came hopelessy involved, and the city of Mobile, whose steamboats penetrated for hundreds of miles the cotton planta tions of the interior, became the unquestioned metropolis, and the chief seat of the bank ing and monetary transactions of Alabama. This financial supremacy Mobile maintain ed for more than half century and al- though she has made great progress in the past ten years. still the marvellous strides made recently by Birmingham have placed this city. from a monetary standpoint. ahead of Mobile. and have fairly entitled it to claim the distinction of being the finan- cial center of Alabama, which claim can be upheld by facts and figures.
 The deposits held by the banks of Birm- ingham are now s5,70o.0oo being an increase 1. twelve months of s2 BOO ono As the totsl seposits of eI. berEs in t,-e hrese of Ala bama do mot exceed si6,O00. .6J0, Ii will he seen that more than one-third of the de- posits of the state of Alabama are concen- trated in Birmingham. Birmingham's old