Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1904-06-18
AFTER GULF OUTLETS.
Railroad Projects Are Fast Multiplying
in the South.

Baltimore, Nd, June 1.-THE incor-
poration of a railroad at Savannah.
Ga, to build a line from there to some
point on the Gulf coast in Florida leads
the Manufacturers Record this week
to comment on the leading part which
ports on the Gulf are expected to play
in having the commerce of the future.
1t says:
This expectation is evidenced by
general desire among neighboring rail-
roads to reach Gulf outlets, and also by
the incorporation of new companies to
build lines thither. This latest Gulf
road project of Importance is the South
Atlantic & Mexican Gulf Railway
Company, the list of it's incorporators
being headed by the name of Captain
D. G. Purse of Savannah, who has
written that the money is provided for
building the line, and that satisfactory
progress with the plan has been made.
Another recent project to reach the
Gulf is that of the Kansas City, Okla
homa & Eastern Railway, which is
said to be backed by the Chicago. Bur-
lington & Quincy, evidently with the
desire to rival the Rock Island by OBJ
tanning an outlet to the Gulf. y Still an
other company lately chartered is the
st. Louis, Little Rock & Gulf Railroad,
proposing to build from St. Louis via
Little Rock to Sabine Lake, Texas. A
| fourth road is proposed by the Gulf &
Pacific Railway Company, which Is
planned to run from Paris, Texas, to
VelascO, Texas.
Not only are these new companies
| and others projected some time ago
| reaching out for Gulf ports, but exist
| ing corporations propose large i'm
provements at their Gulf outlets. For
| instance the Southern Railway and the
Frisco systems are Jointly concerned
| in the great terminal plans of the New
Orleans Terminal Company. In addi-
| ton to this. the Louisiana Railway C
Navigation Company, which is building
| toward New Orleans, has big river
| terminal plan under way for it's use in
| that city. The Gulf & Ship Island
| Railroad is also going ahead with its
] development at Gulfport, Miss, and the
lines entering Pensacola, Mobile, Port
| Arthur and Galveston have also more
| or less improvement work under way,
SO that it appears probable that the ex-
| penditures during the next five years
| Tor the development of transportation
| facilities to ports on the Gulf will
reach very high figure.
"Nhile the determination to build a
Panama Canal has lately directed particu-
lar attention to the value of all harbors
| along our Gulf coast. it must be borne in
| mind that the development of these ports
| is not being brought about solely because
s,,,tt
| cial channel which will connect the two
great oceans, but is mainly on account Of
the fact that lines to the Gulf give in
many instances the shortest routes to
! tidewater from the wheat fields. the mills
| and the packing houses of the West.
| rms has resulted in Il great increase in
expert traffic through the leading Cuff
| cities, and circumstances point not only
TO continuance of this remarkable
| growth, but towards the development OF
| other ports by the improvement of exist
ing lines of land transportation and the
| Dulidlng or new ones. At present this ex,
port traffic is moving principally toward
| Europe, but the time is apparently not far
distant when great percentage of it VIII
go through the canal down the west coast
OF South America to Hawaii, the Philip
pines and the Orient. Much of this
traffic will therefore be COMPOSED Q,
Southern cotton. rice, sugar. oil, navai
stores and lumber, as well as of grain and
meat products from the West.
AS the prospects of the Gulf ports are
| considered no dream in the future con-
cernirg them appears too rosy. Not that
| the Gulf coast will draw from the Atlantic
seaboard the traffic that il enjoys. but
that the Gulf will grow and expand with
that traffic, export and import, which
will be naturally its own. The shortest
| haul to tidewater will undoubtedly com.
nland the export and import business oil
the extensive regions now under develop
ment in the Indian Territory. Oklahoma
and Texas, and 1t will also attract a large
proportion of the vast trade i'll the MIS-
| sissippi Valley. besides much of the bust
ness of the Alabama and Tennessee MINI
eral regions. The trained intellects winch
| govern the transportation systems tnat
reach toward the Gulf have realized the
truth embodied in this promise OF the Iu-
| ture, and are preparing. by new construc.
| ton and otherwise to be ready to ENJOY
| its harvest to the full"