The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-02-04
COMMERCIAL FERTILIZER
 MADE WIREGRASS GREAT
The Use of GuanO Has Developed Lands Which Other wise Would Have Been of Little Value
 in Comparison.

sprang up in night, but not so with Geneva It had fifty years of history before it's augmented growth began immediately following the year te 1880. II. is therefore both an old town and a new town.
 Three Streams Nearby.
 Three streams unite at Geneva, the Choctawhatehie and Pea Rivers and Double Bridge Creek. Double Bridge Creek flows into the Choctawhatchic River within the limits of the town of Geneva Nearly half a mile further down the Pea River joins the Choc- tawhatchite. On the south bank of the Pea River right where 1t flow . into the Choctawhatchie Is a high wooded bIuff. Cn this bluff in 181s, Henry Young, the first white settler, built his log cabin home It was an attractive place for a home. Withie sight were three beautiful limpid streams, their waters dark, yet cless with that peculiar coloring that marks the slow moving streams of the South. They were rich in fish then, even as they are today.
 Across the Pea River in the flat at the junction formed by the Pea and | Choctawhatchie Rivers Young built 2 | trading cabin where he sold salt al ~ other necessities of life to the Indians and the few white settlers who fol- lowed him in. This first pioneer about whose trading post the first town of Geneva grew up was the grandfather of Hon. Henry>A. Pearce. judge of the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit.
 Destroyed by a FIeod. Geneva grew slowly-very slowly. It was only village altrough a sub stantial one when the war came on and when Captain H. W. Laird, of Ge- neva, organized his company for ser vices to the Confederate States. The old town was literally and figuratively destroyed by the famous Lincoln Freshet" of 1865. Its site on the flat between the two rivers was a low one and the waters swept entirely over some of the houses. Many of them were bodily carried away, never to bse heard of again. It Is said that every house in town was more or less de- stroyed.
 At any rate what remained of the town was moved back to the high lands nearly mile from the old site. The citizens of Geneva, when the flood subsided took a fresh start, al- though there was not much to start upon.
 The town grew steadily in size and in importance. It is regarded through out the entire section as a most de- sirable place for home. Many of the turpentine and lumber men oper- ating plants fin Florida and Alabama make their homes in Geneva, all the county officers live here, and alto- gether the residence section of tho city with its scores of fine homes looks desproportionately large in com 1 parison to the business district of the city The disparity of the restric- | ted business district as compared with the residence portion is explained by the statement that the business of the town is in the hands of several large merchants rather than In the hands Tor Q number of smell merchants. These larger mercantile establish ments occupy sometimes three and four stores and some of them carry stocks ranging in value from ESQ., o0O to $400OO. Geneva is fully alive to its appor- l tunities. Hearty and earnest efforts are being made to second and assist the work of the officials of the Louis- vile and Nashville in building up the section. The Geneva end of the wC%k Is In the hands of E. F. EIlsberry, a well known lawyer in that city. Mir: ! EIlsberry is in communication with | the officials of the Louisville and Nashville who furnish the names of prospective settlers in South Alabam and to those prospective settlers cir culars. descriptive of the fertile soil and the splendid climate of Geneva County are sent The work Is already bearing fruit A number of North ern people have already come in and others are coming with the steady and continued influx of Southern farms.