The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-02-03
Hx VIII T. sheehan.

| once. .)-The man of less than middle age can recall, if he remembers easily, when the counties comprising the rich | Wiregrass were almost contemptuously called the "cow countless" He hears in this year 1905, these same counties. this same wlregrass, termed by its admirers the richest agricultural sec- | tion of Alabama"
 1 In a bare quarter of a century these counties have risen in the public mind from the low plane of the "cow coun- | ties" to the high elevation of one of the rich agricultural sections of the State. It was not a sharp. sudden growth. There was no rush of set tiers, no hurrying in of farmers, no IOklahoma booming, nothing of that sort about the transformation. Nor did the railroads make the Wire grass. It's development was pro- nounced. its future was assured when the railroads came in. The fulfillment of the Wiregrass's promise was al- ready in sight, when the railroads push ed in to share the prosperity. It was a long neglected spot, that section of Alabama lying in the southeast corner of the State between the irregular tri- angle formed by the junction of the Florida and the Georgia lines. It was innocent of railroads until twenty years ago. when the Central threw its Eufaula and Clayton branch down to Ozark, and when the old Alabama Midland was built out from Montgomery to the Geor- gia line. Taen in late years the Lou isville and Nashville pierced the Wire grass through and through with its Georgiana and Graceville.
 Railroads push in.
 The Central fully appreciating the richness of the field, continued to move forward again with its lines out of Ozark and out of Troy. So that now the Wiregrass is sufficiently intercept ed and intersected with transportation facilities to assure maintenance of its prosperity assured for the future. A railroad Is not philanthropic or eleemosynary institution It Is not given to making experiments, or to developing wildernesses. The only req sen a railroad is ever run through a wilderness is to connect two rich sec tions which may be far or near each other. When branch lines are thrown out there must be something on which both the branch and the system are to feed.
 The agricultural development of the Wiregrass had assumed notable propor- tions before the surveyors and the track layers went to work. Turpentine men and lumbermen were, as they have ever been in the development of South Ala bama and South Georgia, the advance guard of progress.t The turpentine men were blazing their way through the interminabIe acres with their short. sharp axes and, gathering their har. vests of white encrusted pearls from the trees. The lumbermen were leveI- ing the pine forests and shipping out over log roads cargo after cargo of In pfv only industrial caravansaries, which stopped for a night and a day and pass ed on.
 Progress never came to a section on log road. Nor was 1t ever brought in cooped up in a turpentine still.
 The Settlers Wagon.
 The white canvas wagon cover of the Incoming settler Is the, flag of hone for the County and for the State. Such 8 wagon, with its canvas covering. forming protection for a half dozen tow-headed children. a couple of pos sum dogs tied with a rope to the rear axle. an assortment of pots and kettles decorating the hind end of the wagon. driven by man with a bushy beard and cow-hide boots would, in the minds of many people cut but a sorry figure on Dexter Avenue. Yet a replica of this outfit so imperfectly described might well stand for an emblem of Alabama's growth. More than any other single thing, unless 1t is the To- comotive, 1t has hauled brain and Drawn, progress and prosperity into Alabama, and in doing so 1t surmount- ed more obstacles than the locomotive. and the locomotive only came along the way the canvas wagon has pre- pared.
 In such way came the development of the Wiregrass. In such a way was brought the foundation of its prosper ity. For that which made the present pride of the Wiregrass were the farm CTS who came into Dale. Geneva, Hem ry, Coffee, Houston, Covington and Crenshaw counties. Pike might prop erly be considered a part of the Wire grass, but its agricultural develop ment, its complete settlement was of an older date. Pike like Barbour and Henry, another older County furnish ed many of the settlers. Others came from Middle Alabama. from North Ala bama, from Georgia Carolina, Tennes- see and as far north as Kentucky.
 Winning the Country.
 They were poor men-these settlers. They hadn't much of anything except children, dogs and hope. All they had came in their wagons.
 The riches of the Wiregrass were grown within its own limits. Its pros paritv fs ifa own product Tfs davaI.