The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-03-01

MT. Hart bought the land the Brown farm had been located on. It is un- derstood that J. K. Kelly of Montgom- cry. who is the principal owner of the bank here. was financially interested in the real estate deal which contem- plated the founding of a town.
 The land having been bought, the services of W. B. Gifmer at present a citizen of Florala was secured to lay off the town.
 The original plan of the town was to have one broad street for the busi- ness district through the center of which the right of way Of the Louis- vile and Nashville Railroad was to run. line of business houses was to face and parallel the Louisville and Nashville tracks on either side. It was in other words proposed to build a town with the railroad running down the main street similar to the, towns of Evergreen and Brewton.
 Inasmuch as the plans were only partially carried out the town on first sight impresses the visitor with being odd and peculiar. The business sec- tion consists of four blocks of stores side by side and all facing the same way. In other words just one side of the bushes portion of the town was built up. wherefore all the stores are th oHS Aph6 ipWs All tH6 QemdnQS for sites for business houses were for locations on the north side of the street, circumstance which gave the town an attenuated look. The town is steadily expanding however. Streets which cross this main thoroughfare and its heart of railroad iron are being built up with store houses.
 In honor of the Mayor of Andalusia, Hon. Henry Opp the town was given it's name.
 It should not be overlooked that the original nucleus of Opp was plant of the Berry Lumber Company. The Berry people owned hundreds and thousands of acres of timber land throughout the section. ODD being convenient to this timber, they put up mill here as soon as the railroad was completed, which enterprise, of course, brought in several hundred people, first and last. The employees of the mill and their families in the early days of the town made considera- ble more than majority of the towns population. This mill was considered q vital necessity to the growing com munity. the biggest thing in it and whose existence was considered essen- tial to the towns welfare
 Outgrew the MilI.
 But Opp grew beyond such a condi. tion as that The mill was destroved by fire some two years ago. Instead of destroying the town the burning of the mill was only an incident in its history The mill, when 1t had be- come heap of ashes, was gone for good. Its owners found that 1t was cheaper to take whatever machinery they had left and the iron rails of their logging road and start over new some. where else.
 The town continued it's advance un- bolted and unobstructej. Too many people had been coming into this-eec- ton Of Covington county for the newly founded town to be permanently af- fected by the misfortune. Some of the iand had been homesteaded in the ear- Her days. Most of the homesteaders had stuck and built up homes and farms. Hundreds of people had come Tn with the new railroads. They were young men anxious for chance in A fresh county. They were old men rom older communities who had bet ter opportunities in fresher fields. They were farmers, travelling from the counties to the north. the east and the west Of Covington county, farmers without much capital except hope and energy who saw in the virgin soil a splendid chance for agricultural re- turns of industry. Even as the conn
  try built up thickly settled compared to what 1t was, but thinly settled enough now, so the town continued to grow.
 It was wooden town at first. All new municipalities In Alabama are in their first stages wooden towns. But the brick store steadily and steadily encroached upon the wooden store. One after the other the wooden stores gave place to the brick structures un- til now only few of them remain. A block of the wooden structures went up n the smoke of a disastrous fire the town experienced last year.
 The business demands of the town for more permanent structures but re. fected the conditions created by the growth of the population which now numbers a thousand people. And with this widefied development came two enterprises which look not so much to the present as to the future for their activity and their rewards, the Coving-