The age-herald., 1900-03-14
IN HOTEL LOBBIES
 AND ELSEWHERE

{ MlSSiSS1ppf 10 consider nalAerS dliectly
 concerning their business serves at the mo-
 ment to direct special attention to the passing of the most famous lumber mill in
 this state. There is an advertisement in
 a Mobile newspaper offering for sale the
 property of the Milner, Caldwell and Flow
 CTS Lumber company at and near Boiling
 station on the Louisville and Nashville rail- road in Butler county. This property in- cludes 24,OOO acres of land, from which
 the larger pine timber has been cut, twelve
 miles of railroads. dummy engines, station | tary engines, sawmills, drying kilns and
 so on. For many years. beginning about | 1870, this was the largest and most prohta-
 ble lumber making plant fin Alabama. Con- | vict labor was largely employed, and m
 other days 'Flowers's mill' was ever in | the thoughts of men in Butler who violated
 the law or had inclination to do so. All | over south Alabama indeed the desdgnatioh "Floyers's mill" was as familiar as "Sloss | furnaces" in the Birmingham district Of to- | day. The owners of the great enterprise 1 were the late Senator John T. Mil- ner, of Newcastle; the late pr. H. | M. Caldwell, of Birmingham, and Jonn J. Flowers, of Boiling, and the profits were in themselves sufficient to make the | owners wealthy As far back as the later '70s 1t was understood that the net earn ings amounted to $75,000 a year. That sum | has since then been far exceeded, It Is sald. | At the time the mill was founded Dr. Cald- we'll was residing in Greenville, where he was engaged in the drug business; MT. Mill
 ner was building railroads, and MT. Flow CTS was occupied with other matters All three of these men, who De- came in after years so remarkably success ful, were then young, with the world before them Recently there was begun the work of winding up the business of the Boiling mill. all the available pine timber haVlng been exhausted. Meantime vast acres or pine lands in southwest Georgia were ac- | ou1red and the famous firm began ne" | and greater career.
 
 "Manv property owners in Birmingham and probably elsewhere, have been LOT year possponbng much-needed and mucn- | desired buiIding operations In the hope that building material, and, possibly, wages l would decline" said man who is largely
 interested 'In my opinion, those who are waiting will have a long time in Whlch 10 cool their heels Instead of declining, the latest prices in the great centers or popu- laJtion show unexampled increases, and, Of course. the increases win immediately and seriously affect Birmingham and other points where there is any sort of demand As coming from the house which is the largest dealer in building material in Chi cago. and, therefore, possibly the largest | in tne world, have this notice of increases | in prices over 1899 namely: Bolts and nuts, | 100 per cent; cast iron, 100; chains, 75; lumber, 25; pipe, 16O; shafting, 200: springs, | 100; steel angle 12O; steel bands, 150; steel, | common, 115; steel, crucible, 100; steel, open hearth 1O9; steel, to pattern, 15o; steel l bolts 100; tubing, 150; washers, 80; and wire, 100. These increases are certainly remark able. It will be observed that the smallest | increase is lumber which amounts to only | g per cent But in modern Buildings, ex- | cept as to dwelling houses in the south, lumber is at best of orrly secondary con- l sideration."
 MT John W. Durr of Montgomery, was | in Birmingham yesterday. MT. Durr is a member of the house of Lehman, Durr & | Go. of Montgomery, one of 'Jhe oldest, larg-
 est and most prosperous firms of cotton | | interested in great houses in New Orleans, | New York and Liverpool which handle a great percentage of the southern cotton l crop. For a generation Lehman. Durr & Co.'S cotton warehouse, rhe Alabama att 1 Montgomery, was the most noted in the | cotton-growing belt. The business trans acted Joy the firm was and still is enorm- | ous. MT. Durr is personally one of the | most highly honored and greatly respected | cbtizens of Montgomery.
 The state health officer, Dr. w. H. San | ders was in Birmingham yesterday, and | had consultation with the local doctors in regard to the public health. He came from | Tuscaloosa, where he had been to make . I personal investigation of the matter of | smallpox There about sixty cases of | this disease in that county, but none is in | the city of Tuscaloosa. In forty of the | sixty-six counties of Alabama smallpox ex- l ists. There appears to have been no great l increase in the malady since New Years. | Dr. Sanders intends to insist that the next | legislature pass a stringent compulsory l vaccination law. As to Jefferson county at | present, the doctor does not look for any | considerable spread of smallpox. The dis | ease is well under proper control. By far | the most serious afhiction under which Bir- | mingham has suffered since the smallpox 1 trouble of 1887 is the present extraordinary l prevalence of the grip" and severe colds | of familiar symptoms. Physicians have l treated many hundreds of cases of the
 grip" AS for colds, the sufferers gener- l ally treat themselves or merely try to l "wear it off, The severity of the colds ep- | idemc was most forcibly Illustrated in the | various churches on Sunday. Coughing was so continuous and so intense as to se- l riously interfere with worship
 
 l Charles G. Abercrombie, leading busi- 1 ness man of Montgomery and sometime l president of the prosperous Commercial
 and Industrial association of that city,
 was in Birmingham yesterday. MT. Aber- | crombie has valuable property interests in
 this district.