The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-01-21
SOME REPRESENTATIVE FIRMS
Mercantile and Financial Concerns Make an Excellent Showing-Man- ufacturers, Jobbers and Bank
 CTS Are Progressive.

Birmingham continues on its high tide of prosperity. The year 1903 was a record breaking year, and the present year is not likely to fall behind 1t in volume of business or in industrial mercantile or banking development.
 Last fall there was, a lull in manufac- turing enterprise throughout the coun- try, and pessimists there were who thought they saw hand times ahead. But no matter how disquietng conditions be- came in certain sections, business in the Birmingham district remained in a healthy state, and with the new year came bright outlook everywhere
 The unprecedented crops and the high prices which the farmers received for their products have left an abundance of money in circulation in the agricultural centers, and Alabama being an agricul- tural as we'll as mining and manufac- turing state, has shared fully in these benefits.
 Few cities in the south have felt the effects of good times in the farming dis tricts more directly than Birmingham Every manufacturer and iobber here has customers among the country merchants and every retail merchant here sells large bills to the tillers of the soil. Thus 1t is seen that oven if a large proportion of wage-workers of the Birmingham district were idle the agricultural trade alone would be enough to make banking and jobbing business brisk. But as a matter of fact nearly all the worlSingmen here abouts are employed Never was there a greater demand for coal miners than there has been this winter. and the steel mills and the half dozen furnaces that have been undergoing repairs will soon start up again. Within the past few days the Bessemer rolling mills resumed work and the Birmingham rolling mills are only temporarily idle. The railroads are ex- pending a great deal of money here on betterments and yard extensions, and by the first of March, and perhaps earlier, the labor pay rolls of the Birmingham district will be as large as they were this time last year. something like s35oo,oOO a month
 The Birmingham district has thirty blast furnaces, two steel plants, a rail and structural plant, three rolling mills, a spike mill pipe works, rod and wire mills. and all manner of manufacturing concerns About 14O companies, great and small, were incorporated here last year. and the number this year will doubtless be larger.
 While Birmingham Is essentially manufacturing city. it's jobbing trade Is developing steadily and is reaching out in many directions The volume of the wholesale trade amounted last year to about sS0,0oo.O00.
 Birmingham handles about 100000 bales of cotton year.
 Seventy-five per cent of all the rail- road traffic of Alabama originates in the Birmingham district
 The clearings of the Birmingham banks last year amounted to more than s6O,- D00.00O.
 In 1903 the number of new houses erect ed in Birmingham and envrons footed up 2.0S4 It Is estimated that the number will reach 400 in 1904.
 The greater Birmingham has a popula- tion of more than hundred thousand, and is growing now at a faster rate than ever.
 The financial institutions of this city are noted for their solidity and the pro- gressive and busness-lke methods in which they are conducted, and every wholesale merchant and manufacturer here is Characterised by liberal and up- to-date methods.
 The following concise articles give a pretty good idea of some of the represen- tative concerns of Birmingham and will well repay perusal.