Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1901-04-10
BUSINESS IN THE SOUTH.
Trade and Industry in Dixie Has Had
a Wonderful Growth in the
Last Few Years.

Wonderful Growth in the
Last Few Years.
The half of the continent lying
south of the Ohio and of the Platte
is looming up as an uncomfortable
trade magnate, with probably un-
shaken determination to do business
on the nearest salt water. The south
ern states, in their remarkable in
dustrial achievements of the last
eight years, are more than reen-
forcing the territory of the Missis-
sippi and of the Red River of the
North. Between the iron, coal and
timber of the south and the agricul-
ture of the southwest there has arts
en- spontaneous interchange that
seems to grow by it's own force. The
cotton mills below the Mason and
Dixon line, contrary to former Gus
tom, send their output straight to
the dry goods and denim merchants
of the Mississippi and the Missouri
instead of the regions dispatching
their orders to Boston and New York
Wagons from Georgia are making
their way into the farms of Okla
homa and Arkansas, while Kansas
City flour and St. Louis corn, Kansas
City hides and St. Louis shoes go as
far, as North Carolina, and eastern
Tennessee. Coal and iron from the
vicinity of Birmingham and Knox
vile are taking the contracts for the
building of the steel freight cars to
ply on the Southern roads. St. Louis
has long since made use of the hard
woods of the south to fortify its
position as the principal manufacturer
in the United States of car furniture,
of street cars, and the like, writes
Arthur I. Street. in Ainslee's.
Since the Spanish war has brought
the trade with the West Indies into
prominence, the heavily capitalized
and determined Illinois Central ha:
been seconding the efforts of the
people of New Orleans to make that
point the principal port of entry for
trade with not only the adjacent is.
lands but with South America. To
some extent the pressure of this
movement has been felt among the
South American firms whose head
quarters are at New York. Mobile,
as the terminus of the Southern rail"
way and as the nearest seaport for
the iron Industries of Alabama, is
growing in the volume and variety of
it's articles of commerce. Pensacola
is strengthening as one of the prin-
cipal ports for the tramp steamship
traffic in the south-a traffic which
went to New York and Boston, Phil
adelphia and Baltimore before the
awakening of the south and the per-
fecting of it's railroad lines.
Again, along the Atlantic coast
north from Florida to the Chesapeake
bay, Brunswick, in Georgia, is be-
coming the largest shipper of hard
wood lumber, Charleston and Savan-
lures, furniture, ETC., to Europe,
South America and South Africa. At
Norfolk is harbor naturally the
strategic point for the trade of the
whole South Atlantic slope. Five or
six railroad systems concentrate in
the city, and it has recently been
fixed upon by a number of cooperat-
ing railroads as live stock shipping
center. With Newport News, it
drains the coal and iron fields OF
West Virginia. southwestern Pennsyl-
vania and eastern Ohio. The com
merce of Newport News itself adj
vanced from $3,25O,O00 in 1885 to $685.
100000 in 1899.
Over on the western boundary of the
southern states, Memphis moves
along swiftly with it's lumber mills
and it's interstate traffic. justifying
it's. assumed name, "the Gate City,
and practically completing Gordon
of active, advancing cities around
the area in which was waged the civil
strife of the sixties. All these cities
are competitors of the north and
east. They are carrying business to.
ward the south and west. Where the
states in the vicinity of St. Louis
and Kansas City lack manufacturing
establishments to support their pc.
sition as jobbers, these communities
supply the lack and join forces in
the outward tendency and In the
tendency toward the South Atlantic
Where the states in the vicinity Of
Atlanta or Jackson may lack in the
staples of the soil, the west sup
plies them. The geography of it al
is against New York.