Fitzgerald enterprise. (Fitzgerald, Ga.) 1895-1912, 1906-05-29
CAMP OF WHITE TENTS HAS been
TRANSFORMED into WONDERFUL CITY
Fitzgerald, in Irwin County an Object Lesson OF
GeOrgia's Progress, Becomes in Ten Years
a City of 10000 Population.
;ol. Clayton Jay, in Atlanta Constitution.

cities and those who live on cultivated farms IN
the red hills, as they sit in their cosy homes
are wont to think of pioneer days and magic
cities as things of the far past and, even them
not associated with Georgia, but the prairie
west.
Yet within a few days. ride from their
doors, the builders of cities have been at work
and have labored so silently and so we'll that, al
most unknowingly, there have arisen with the
past generation half score of cities that ola
fair to rival the most prosperous OF the south.
The wiregrass has been the scene OF action.
Turpentine stills and saw mill hamlets have
given place to clustering blocks of brick and
stone with paved streets and handsome resi-
dences. The paths of the wild cattle have wild
ened into we'll worked highways, and web OF
railroads have appeared 50 quickly spun and so
closely drawn that it resembles the work OF a
giant spider that has labored over night.
The entire section spoken of should excite
the admiration of the country. Each town
stands as an amazing record of the enterprise
and aggressiveness of its energetic clt1zenry.
The most wonderful of the whole number
is the city of Fitzgerald.
Many people in the north end OF the state
and of Alabama and Tennessee will rem EN- Der
the continual stream of whitened wagons that
poured over the hills and southwark during the
fall and winter of 1896 This was the beginning
of FITZGERALD. Founded by p. H. Fitzgerald,
of Indiana, and located by Ex-Governor North
en- in the virgin pine forests of Irwin county, 1t
began it's career without railroad. Two short
lines entered the town the following summer OF
1896, and the 1000 settlers. with renewed
energy, bowed TO their tasks.
There is field for a novelist here. Vol
umes could be written of the upward struggle
against odds; the pleasures, the sufferlngs that
came to these cam fre people, for in those days
twas but hugh camp of tent and bark, lighted
at night by hundreds of rosln-soaked stumps
But let this be passed over. It is the city of to-
day that demands attention and that strikes
with wonder the returning wanderer who was
familiar with the country decade ago.
WHO MAKE UP IT'S CITIZENS.
AS colony city for old soldiers and seek
ers of milder winters, the impression may have
spread among the unknowing that it IS an
ASYLUM for the aged and invalid, winter resort
a socialistic community. It is a home for the
soldier, in that several thousand veterans of the
blue and gray, peacefully gathered, live at
ease from the proceeds of their small orchards
and truck lands; winter resort, in that humid
reds of solid and substantial citizens from the
north and west take refuge thro the cold months
and socialist;c, in that the heart and hand of
every man Joins with his neighbors in the COM
mon welfare and up-building of the com mun1ty.
1t is metropolitan, composed of many people OF
many ideas but all are focused on one central
obiect-a greater and better Fitzgerald. The
brain and Drawn of Georgias sons stands with
the foremost in the development of this new
city, at least SO per cent of the inhabitants
being of native birth. Each county in the state
has supplied its quota. Most Of these have
been young men, who came to build their for.
tunes, and we'll have they succeeded. 1t is the
most noticeable fact to visitors that the interests
of the town are in the hands, for the greater
part of young men.
And truly these young men have builded
wisely. Fitzgerald is manufacturing town,
and these are the men who made it so. The
latest achievement is the securing of the large
shops now being erected by the Atlanta, Bir-
mingham and Atlantic Railroad Company, which
will cost over $500,000 and cover more ground
than any in the south outside of Richmond, Va
Two hundred acres were given the railroad for
a shop site.
Throughout the day the sound of hammer
and saw and the wh1r of machinery never cease
and the throbbing dynamos pulsate with the
heart of night.
The city proper covers a territory mile
and a quarter square. beautifully laid off in
streets and avenues, with a wide drive sur
rounding the whole. The trees planted by the
early colonists are assuming large proportions,
and pleasing view is presented from the top
of any tall building. The suburban country is
I.