The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-12-31
Are One Except in the
 Government.
Only Five Houses Were Left Standing in old Settlement by vandaI sol- diers--Its Rapid Development
 and Growth.
By wiii T. sheehan.

1 By Wtf ". Sheenan.
 l When the blue coated Union soldiers
 marched out of Decatur lust before the 1 close of the war, they left five build | ings standing in the town. Nobody 1 knows why they left so many buildings unburned. Probably, they were tired
 of smelling smoke.
 When the vaadal torch O. war had
 been put out. when blood had ceased Ito flow and when men were no longer hunting each other down with guns
 Tn their hands. the people who returned to Decatur found they had left as a
 basis for the building of a new town just five buildings. Three of them II and a portion of the fourth are still
 standing and the patriotic citizen takes
 an especial pride in them. One is the | picturesque old State Bank building,
 two blocks from the wide sweep of tho + Tennessee river. Another is an old
 ante -bellum inn. the Mccartney Hotel.
 where the stage coaches would draw ' up and where the plantation owners.
 their wives and daughters. would 1 wait for a Tennessee river steamboat | or for on of the primitive trains which
 ran into Decatur and which were the l first trains operated west of the Alle- | ghany mountains.
 l The third relic of tho oversight of | the Union soldiers is the home of tho Hines family which overlooks the line
 of the Louisville and Nashville Rail- | road and stands near the Tennessee
 river, a quaint old building. with broaj verandahs and square white posts. The l fourth building Is what was the oij 1 Polk Hotel. which now forms pare of the Wallace residence. The fifth was a large log structure, which pre- served from the vandal flames of the Union soldiers fell a victim to the &C., cidental fire of It's owner. Ashes and
 empty streets were the foundations
 that the people of Decatur had to build | upon.
 In tn modern year of 1906 the Deca | turs, the Twin Cities of the Tennessee Valley, covers more territory than either Birmingham. Montgomery or
 Mobile For the two cities which are in fact only one city. except in mu-
 nicipal government, population of
 15. 900 Is claimed. If one would be &C.,
 curate and discount the claims of local
 patriotism for a couple of thousand the two cities would have a population of 13,000, and there Is every reason to
 believe that there are at least that
 many people here.
 Decatur Spread Out.
 Decatur Is the antithesis of Mont gomery. Montgomery in one sense Is the very thing that Decatur is not,
 and Decatur Is the very thing that
 Montgomery is not. Montgomery is
 the most closely built, the most con- gested city in Alabama Decatur, con- sidering of course that the two towns 1 are one. as they are in fact, Is the l most far flung city of all Alabama. A | man could cover Montgomery in 1 days drive, much more easily than he | could cover Decatur. From one extreme end of the town to the other extreme l end would be a nice summer after
 noon's drive.
 In one way the place is not one town | or two towna, but . series of towns. There are Decatur, New Decatur, South I Decatur, West Decatur, Central Deca- | tur, Austinville, Fairness, Mounton
 Heights and one or two other suburbs.
 If a man wanted to visit and look
 closely after all parts of the city be
 could not do it on one short winter
 day of the Christmas season.
 The great shops of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad in New Decatur,
 with 2,500 men at work and a monthly
 pay roll of more than $100,O00 Is of
 course the chief commercial asset of 1 the growing and thriving city. But
 they form only one asset. There Is
 cotton, for instance. Further down the State they never think of Decatur as a cotton town, nevertheless Decatur gets
 an average of S0,000 bales of cotton
 of cotton a year. Last year and the year before the total ran up to some thing like 100000 bales, but the aver
 age cotton business is near So,000 bales
 each year.
 This cotton business is the chief ag-
 ricuItural factor in Decatur's growth
 and 1t is the principal portion of the city's business that comes from the surrounding country. The farming in | terests outside of cotton are not so vital or valuable as they are near Huntsville or in some Of the other l North Alabama towns.
 1 On the other hand, the manufactur- i ing interests of Decatur, even when the shops are excluded from consider , ation are much more important than | those of any other town of its class.
 with the exception of Ensley. which. | however, may be said to have all It's
 manufacturing eggs in one basket. The | factory interests at Decatur are di- 1 verse and varied, running from an up- to-date wood working establishment to
 sole leather tannery. which is known i throughout the world and which has l hides sent to 1t from Brazil. the Argen- 1 tine Republic, Central America, China
 and Japan.
 MT. GOrdon's Work.
 Modern Decatur dates back to 1886 :. l In that year the Louisville and Nash
 vile Railroad decided to locate it's big general shops in what is now New De-
 ton field. In the same year there came ! Major Eugene c. Gordon, a brother of
 John B. Gordon. He founded the De-
 catur Land Company, interested the
 country in the new town. launched a boom that Is almost without parallel
 In the history of the South, and led in the rapid upbuilding of the city side | by side with the old. Then the panic 1 same Major Gordon went broke. But
 the land company survived through the
 lean years and 1t continues as an im- portant factor in the steady growth of | Decatur in the new century.
 The first railroad built in America west of the AIleghany Mountain was built from Tuscumbia to Decatur. The
 tracks were laid in 1892. 1t was a
 small and inconsequential affair &C.,