The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-12-31
REMARKABLE STORY OF
 TWO CITIES OF DECATUR

nel of progress far in advance of tn, army. The rails were only strips oi iron laid over hastily chopped timber. The motive power was originally mule and the engineer handled a stick in- stead of a throttle. He was mostly black.
 Tie road is now a part of the South ern and 1t is as modern as any other portion of the big ssytem and the train: run over it with the same general in- difference to tho schedule. The Ten nessee Valley planters originally built the road to get their cotton into Deca- tur from Tuscumbia and the surround ing country. A system of steam boats and fiat boats in those days was strug- gling with the cotton business on the Tennessee, but at best 1t was unsat- isfactory because of the Muscle Shoals near Florence.
 The mule power road was run around the shoals and the Lawrence and Col bert County cotton was hauled into Decatur. Before the war came on real steam engines were running on the road and something like a sure enough railroad track had been put down. On | this part of the line of the Southern | the officials have memento of those old days that Is not altogether pleas ant. The road builders only got a right {, of way that was only twenty-five feet | wide, which was very we'll in 1892 but WhACh CEdIlpS n TdllTOdu OI 10Uos Decatur was becoming quite a rail- l road center when the war broke out, although 1t had perhaps less than a ] thousand inhabitants. The war par alyzed Alabama. from the Tennessee | to the Gulf. but no section of the state | suffered so like the Tennesse valley. The Tennessee Valley in the grievous years of the fratricidal struggle was like Cuba under the 'reconcentrado" policy of Spain. The Valley was crushed be- twen two mill stones, the northern army. being the upper and the south ern army. the neither mill stone. One of the Union gunboats on the Tennessee would be attacked by a force of gueril la Confederates. A Federal outpost would be destroyed by quick sortie of the agile Confederates. The wrath of the Union soldiers would not fall upon the Confederate Ruerillas. who would be far away in the mountains before their heavier antagonists could muster for punishment. It would fall upon the helpless and sorely tried peo- pie of the Valley. Houses would be burned, property destroyed and only too often innocent lives would be talk en.
 The town of Decatur was taken by the Federals early in the war. The Fed erals not only took 1t. but they held 1t. Attack after attack was made by the Confederates, in a vain effort. It was only won back in the closing days of the great struggle when the Confed- crates, a part of Hoods army forced the Union soldiers to vacate. When they marched out, when they left the place. 1t was a sorry sight for tho citizens who had known and loved the little city on the Tennessee.
 GeOd Year of 'sa.
 But the good year of 's6 brought an- other era The desolate years that fol- lowed the cruel war were forgotten. Modern progress had claimed Decatur for its own. The Louisville and Nash vile. forseeing the forward movement of the South, forseeing its own great ness which had then mostly been in promise established its general sff0ps at Decatur
 The railroads did not establish this great industrial enterprise in the old town. They put 1t a mile away and to the South. Then came the promoter. the investor and the speculator. With 1t all and leading was Major Eugene c. Gordon. They have 2 fine high school building in New Decatur which they call the Gordon School, a well deserved compliment to the man who risked hlS all to build up the town and riskin9 1t lost 1t In the crash which followed the panic.
 They were great days during the boom. New Decatur was an old field. But the land owners and the boomers put up tent. They sold land in that tent, land at fabulous figures. In that tent maps were exhibited and lots on those maps sold for $350 a front foot. lots that were in an old cotton field, a quarter of a mile from what is now the principal business district of New Decatur. Major Albes owned the Bis mark Hotel, a frame building of two stories at the depot near the busi- ness section of Decatur. The building might have cost $T.0OO when 1t was erected. In the intoxicated times of the boom he was importuned to sell 1t for $SO,000 and refused. A man would come in and pay $2,00O for lot in an old cotton field. in the speculative hope that tomorrow he would be able to sell 1t for $2.O00. He frequently succeeded The lucky ones succeeded.
 Decatur in the meanwhile was grow ing steadily. but 1t, too, was infected with the fever of real estate specu- lation. Morgan county dirt in the old town went sky high. but there was not the intoxication in the old town that there was in the new.
 Then the blow fell. The causes of it. whatever they were, do not mat ter. It Is sufficient to know that the bottom dropped out. and men who Oilo odys were pauperS the next. But all the wildness and all the speculation was not In vain. New De- catur had been mapped and planned in an old cotton field. The hopes of its promoters had not been realized, men who had clung to those hopes had been ruined. A magnificent hotel that cost more than $75.0O0 stood empty and Idle. Business houses erected at a huge cost, had closed doors and shut tered windows. But a town had been built. An Alabama city had been erected on a Tennessee Valley plan. tation.
 The promoters who went there to make fortunes in land speculation had firmer basis for their speculation than mere dreams. Those conditions which go into the making of tity were conditions that obtained at the city of trial city was there. It matters not whether 1t were better to let the city grow naturally of its own accord, or to give 1t the hot house growth of a boom town. The industrial wealth was there.
 The boom burst. but Decatur con tinued to grow. The lots that sold for ridiculous and fahuous figures drag ged down to financial ruin. some of the men who had put their savings in them. but men had to come to Deca- tur. They had to have places on which to build their homes. Coom or no boom the town had to grow. And ir did.
 If has grown steadily and consistent