The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-02-11
py WILL T. sHEEHAN.

| HX WlNsIt 1s SAEBAAANe
 Enterprise, Feb. 10.--tSpecial Core. spondence.) )--So indomitable was the spirit of Enterprise. so rich is it's ag- ricultural territory. so propitious were | it's surrounding conditions that the town, three times practically destroyed by Are. rose each time stronger than before.
 It is a remarkable record for pluck that the town has. The city or town once burned, but which rises from the ashes stronger and better never ceases to point with pride to the incident and | it's orators picture the way in which it rose, Phosnix-Iike. stronger and more beautiful from the ashes of a direful misfortune" In such a cir cumstance . peculiar local pride is taken whether the place be a city like ! Chicago or a rural postoffice with two stores and Q blacksmith shop. But three such disasters, three such revtvals--sursly no town has such unique record
 The fires were most peculiar. ERcn of them took place on the 2Srd day of March. And they occurred in three successive years. For three succeed. ing years the town of Enterprise suf- fered a disastrous fire on the 2Srd day of March.
 Burnlna of Enterprise.
 Small wonder 1t is that on the fourth anniversary, the fourth 23rd day of March the entire town was put under a heavy guard, a guard that comprised half the citizenship of the town. And | even as these men, heavily armed with pistols, fowling pieces and Winchester rides, walked the street, the alarm of fire was given. A negro house on the Mizell place, half a mile from the business portion of town, was discov- cred in blaze.
 The first impulse of the heavily armed fire patrol was to rush over to the burning cabin, but the cry waa raised that perhaps the blaze was a decoy to get the guards away from the business section to allow some Ire hend to get in his work
 If deeoy it was the blazing cabin | failed of its purpose. The determined guards remained and the fateful 23rd of March was passed without a dis aatrous fire.
 The first of these costly blazss oc- cured six years ago. It was a new town then. was Enterprise. Business was rushing, trade was booming and wooden stores, so quickly built, were the business structures of the town. The fire, right in the heart of the city, Jumped the main streets and the busi- ness section was wiped out, even as a piece of plotting paper would lap up a drop of ink. A new business section was hurriedly built. But on the omi- nous 2srd day of March the flames ate up one side of Main Street. half the | stores and business houses of the place. They were immediately rebuilt. The third year when the 23rd of March rolled around the opposite side of the street suffered the same fate.- Fires Yet a Mystery. The fires were mysteries. They gave food for reflection, for discussion and for theories, but nothing definite or substantial ever came of any discus sion or any theory. The origin of these strange, weird fires has passed Intr the realm of unexplained things. There be men of Enterprise who have nurtured suspicion about the flames, but they have kept these suspicious close locked in their breasts. Nor is 1t certain that the suspicion held by one man coincides with that suspicion in the breast of another.
 But the town that can suffer three blows such as those and become the more vigorous, the more hopeful for them--well. such g town has the right l sort of spirit, to say the least. All it's prosperity, all its misfor- tunes, its setbacks and its develop m ants came to Enterprise within the past seven years. What it is, with good fortune and bad fortune Enter prise became in the short space of seven years. It would seem in Its early days that misfortune and good fortune struggled with each other over the mastery of Enterprise Which of the two won may not be doubted. The town Itself is the answer to the ques- tion.
 People of HnterDPi@e.
 The Wiregrass rivals of Enterprise concede that it has about 2.500 inhab- itants. Enterprise itself asserts its right to be elassed as a city of 5000 people. And the road which was or- namented eight years ago by a couple of stores and blacksmith shop Is now the main street of town which has with it's fifty stores. The majestic pro- portions of a s1ss,oo0 cotton mill rise from a plat of ground which Was re- gently a pine wood and still more re- gently a cotton patch The place as- sumes urban airs with it's permanent two and three story brick buildings, its paved sidewalks, its electric lights and water works. And all of this in seven years with three big fires in the meanwhile.
 More than one element of success must enter into a growth like that. In the first place the site of the town must be suspicious there must be re- sources behind 1t, and most important of all its citizens must be moved by an energetic and generous public spirit. By every evidence Enterprise must have and possess these clements.
 Town's Rapid Growth.
 'I have never seen anything equal the growth of Enterprise" said State Senator R. 1T. Arlington, formerly of Montgomery, later of Elba, but now of Enterprise. T am familiar with con- ditions in the Wiregrass. I am fa- miliar with the rapid way fin which some of the WiregraSs towns grew but I have never known one of them, not one of them. to grow so rapidly and so substantially as Enterprise did. The town has by no means reached it's full growth and development yet, as fast as stores and houses have been added to it."
 An old thought on the phenomenon