The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-10-23
JOEL HURT ONCE
 MORE A F|NANC|ER Recent Sale of Georgia Coal
 and Iron Company SOLD AT A BIG ADVANCE Property That Cost Only $4oo,0oo Brings Nearly $2,ooo, ,ooo-ore Land of High VaIue-Hstory of
 the Company.
SOLD AT A BIG ADVANCE
From the Atlanta Journal.

| From the Atlanta Journal.
 Through his sale recently to the South I ern Steel company of his iron and coal properties in Barlow county and the ad- jacent territory, by which he made $1, . O00,OOO or more, Joel Hurt has again come i to the front as financier.
 Those who saw his name at the head of the Georgia Iron and Coal company ! little realized that he was working, and had been working for seven years on a property which he was later to sell for nearly s2,000,000.
 Mir Hurt has a way Of remaining quelt after each of his deals, and this gives out a periodical impression that he has retired. He first attracted attention as a financier of the first order when he erected the Equitable building, the first sky-scraper in Atlanta. That was fifteen years ago. MT. Hurts faith in the belief that this building would fill up was 1usti- fed not only In that particular instance, but by the fact that so many similar structures have followed suit since. He then devoted his attention to street railways. Having perfected the local sys- tenn he sold it to the present owners. Then there followed a period of appar- ent inactivity, but all the while MT. Hurt | was busy in an altogether novel direction. In May of last year he was exploited as landscape gardener, or rather as one 1 who directed landscape gardening. He l branched out as an artist and made of Druid Hills near Atlanta, d regular Bilt- more in topography and beauty. 1 Then, just the other day, it was an nounced as quite matter of fact thing, that MT Hurt and his associates, consti- tuting the Georgia Iron and coal com pany, had sold to the Southern Steel com pany their iron and coal properties in Georgia al a price ranging between $1,- 5OOoeo and $2OOo,Ooo
 Formed Company In 1899. l It now develops that during one of Mr Hurts periods of inactivity he had pro- | jected this enterprise. It was in October, 1899, that MT. Hurt formed the Georgia Iron and Coal company, and it was then two years before he had started his land scape gardening-that he began develop ing the property.
 The property In question belonged to 1 the Joe Brown estate, and in it's unde- veloped state lay In Catoosa, Dade, Walk CT and Barrow counties, and in one or two | counties In Tennessee and Alabama. Mr. ] Hurt saw that there was something in the property. He sent experts there and found out for certain. He then went to | work tn The Georgia Iron and Steel company was then formed with MT. Hurt as presi- dent; his son, George r. Hurt as vice ] president and general manager and J. E, Frazier as treasurer. This company ab- sorbed eight others, as follows: Tho Southern Mining company, the Southern l Mining, Manufacturing and Investment company; the Barlow Iron and Manga nese company; the Rogers Iron company; the Walker Iron and Coal company; the Dade Coal company; the Castle Rock Coal company, and the Iron Belt Rail- road and Mining company.
 Cost Them $4oo,ooo.
 This property, consisting of manganese, iron, coal and timber lands, cost MT. | Iiuil anu HIS tLSSptldlto SOHGlnlflB llke s40000o, barring, of course, expenditures for improvements. The Georgia Iron and , Coal company was capitalized at some thing like $500,00O and the work was be- gun.
 Before giving an inventory of the prop erty, it is interesting to note the fact that upon it was first discovered man. l ganese, a product known as the medicine of steel and without which steel is inn possible to manufacture. The existence of ferro-manganese was discovered by a man named Ward, an English engineer. He had the process patented, and kept 1 Carnegie out of it for several years. It was not until this patent expired that the Steel King was enabled to use it. ] The existence of manganese alone would be enough to make this property valua- ble. The property lies mainly between ! Lookout Mountain, in Tennessee, and Sand Mountain, in Georgia This consti- tutes a valley, through which the Ala bama Great Southern railway runs. A great deal of the ore is mined from the sides of Sand Mountain It is surface ore and in several instances has to be blasted.
 The inventory of this vast property is as follows:
 Inventory of Property. In Barlow county the property con sists of brown hematite and gray specu- lar hematite iron ores and manganese lands, timber and farming lands and min
 ing plants. There are 1S000 acres in Bar tow and Cherokee counties.
 In Catoosa county there are 5000 acres of red fossillferous hematite iron ore and timber lands.
 At Rising Pawn, Ga, there are 5000 acres in Dade and Walker counties com prisng red fossiliferous hematite iron ore and coal. On this land there are also limestone quarries and mining plants,