The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-06-11
AFAir Dream of Olden
 Times Has Come to Pass

minais at Navy Cove, and for the sell
 ing Of the land which they have secured
 around Navy Cove and Fort Morgan: The company Is largely made up of
 some of the enterprising men who have
 done so much in recent years in the remarkable development of Baldwin lCounty.
 The Company omcers. The officers of the company are J. ID.
 Hand. President. Mir. Hand is probably
 the best known cftizen of Baldwin County. and one of the best known men
 in South Alabama. He has made sew eral fortunes in buying and selling land
 and fin big lumber mill which he op-- erated at Dolive for several years and
 which not long. ago he sold to a syndi-
 cate. He Is living for the present in
 New Mexico. where he Is said to own the largest ranch in the territory. The Vice. President of the Company
 is Charles Barclay. a leading member of the bar of Philadelphia. Mir. Bar | clay Is not only a lawyer of high standing but he is a man of large | means, a great deal of which has been invested in Southern enterprises. The development of Navy Cove since the Panama Canal became a certainty has been an alluiing proposition to him and he as much as any other man is | responsible for the inauguration or the movement for its development | The Secretary of the Comptny is w. c. Dinwiddie a citizen of Bay Mi- nette. MT. Dinwiddie is the largest l stock holder in the bank of that place.
 He is also an officer of one of the large | land companies of the County and has ] a part in other Baldwin County en- | terprises.
 W. D. Stephens is the Treasurer of
 the Company.
 | The new charter under which the work has begun" said Mir. Dlnwildie. | Ifs in fact revival of the old charter
 of the Gulf. Birmingham and North | ern granted some years ago to J. D. Hand and others of his associates who | are interested with him in the present enterprise. The old charter had for
 it's original purpose the building of
 direct line from Navy Cove to Bir- mingham. The new charter takes it's place and the work which will be
 done under it will be the construction l of the only. railroad that it will be
 possible to build into Navy Cove. | 'The company owns hundreds, I | might say, thousands of acres If laTd
 around Navy Cove. It has taken years | and years to secure these lands and
 perfect their titles. Fortunes havo
 been spent by the company in this l preliminary work of the improve l ments. |
 | But years before we came into the | field the same proposition was an al-
 turing prospect to half a dozen or
 more. other men. They saw the possi- | bilities of harbor at the vary waters of the Gulf Why sh oIld i: mt be a good thing? The towage and pIlct- | age on some of the vessels whicl pass | over the bar and go up the bay 10 Mo- bile Bay amounts to between $?0G and | $7Q0. The harbor that can save this and take the cargo off the vessel nt / the very waters of the Gulf and by the
 side of railroad track Is q harbor l that could do nothing else but make
 money for it's owners
 Lead on by this allurlnS vision l man after man attempted she enter l prises. One after another bought cut
 land along Navy Cove, traced back ii. | tie after title, only to be baked in some way. Another would take his
 place when the money of the first had l given out, buy up his claim and ex- I tend the work, only to give place to a
 third. And still the actual work on | the enterprise was not undertaken. 1 l know of man in New York who spent $17,000 and was forced to see | the enterprise slide out of his grasp An Iowa man, whose name l could
 call, went deeply into it and spent
 S37,000. only to wake and see the vis-
 ion fade away. A Mobile man, whose
 name is well known throughout South
 Alabama, almost made the accomplish
 ment of the enterprise his life-work
 He invested $60,000 in 1t only to sell
 out his interest for the best price he
 could get.
 There was only one way to get tho | enterprise started-to wait until those
 who had entered upon it had given it | up and was content to let 1t pass in
 the hands of othors. Waiting patient | ly until the proper time J. D. Hand
 and his associates. who was deeply
 interested in the possibilities of the
 Navy Cove terminals. stepped in and bought up all existing claims. More l over, they made additional purchases | Of land adjoining that which had been | held by the men who were attempting | to build the terminal Month after | month the work of Investigating title
 after. title and of making abstract af-
 ter abstract and thousands of dollars | were invested. The corporation quiet | ly bided it's time. That time has come
 now. The dirt has been broken. the
 work begun. It matters nothing, 1t
 means nothing to Mir. Hand and hls
 associates that those who preceded
 them failed. The railroads and the
 terminals will be built"
 Terminal Improvements. | When the railroad shall have been | built the thirty-one miles that sep
 urates Foley ard Navy Cove the
 wharves and piers will be constructed.
 It Is proposed in addition to the con l struction of the wharves to build q l long pier and breakwater out into the 1 bay to where the water is now from
 ttrtecn to eighteen feet deep. Some | dredging will be done. Officers of the
 company say that the dredging can be
 done cheaply and easily and that no
 assistance will have to be asked from i tho government The statement is
 made that more than million dollars will be spent upon the Navy Cove ter | minals.
 | It should be understood that the
 land about Navy Cove has already
 been plotted for town. the streets laid out and the location of proposed
 big buildings selected. Some of the
 lots hayN been sold. Certain well known citizens of Montgomery have bought some of the property. In time it is hoped that the new seaport on the Gulf would become d winter resort for Alabama people or for people of
 any other State for that matter. The company has recently been in
 mild litigation with the United States government The government con demned l63 acres of the land belong ing to the company adjacent to Fort Morgan. The government Is going to make rifle range for the Fort Nor
 gan garrison with this land. The l company fought the condemnation pre-
 ceedings, alleging that the government was taking d large part of its best land At recent sitting of the Uni | ted States Court in Mobile the land in l question Was condemned for the, gov