The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-01-28

ever, had other plans for his future. Seevral of them brought the unsophicti- cated prospector to New York and taught him the royal art of spending. He plunged into the Wall street wilderness with his usual daring and self-confidence, but soon learned that it was unlike the Ala bama wilderness in which he had found his money. In six weeks he had lost every dollar of his two and d half mil lions.
 Finding his way back to Birmingham, he appeared. penniless, in the office of the New York corporation. asking for any kind of employment. He was taken on at a salary of twenty-five dollars a week-less than he had been able to spend in every minute of his memorable six weeks After a short time he was discharged, and walking the streets workless, propertiless, moneyless man, derived by magic, as it seemed to him, of the enormous wealth he had created.
 But hose who imagined that his ca reer was ended knew little of the recuperative powers of DeBardeleben. Striking into the depths of the mountains once more. he took up the work of pio- neering in which he was a master and with his usual success located new beds of ore and coal. At present he is opening up a rich district within forty miles of Birmingham.
 Captains of Alabama Industry.
 Other Alabama pioneers who enlisted in the regiment of iron and steel millionaires are the Woodwards, who came from Wheeling: James Bowron, who grew up with the iron business in England; Daniel Hillman and his son, T. T. Hillman, who made the first Birmingham iron. These men and others have become Alabamians. They are remaining in Birmingham and transforming it from a murky region of mines and furnaces into a city of comfort and beauty.
 They are also accommodating local cap ital so that the district shall not remain an industrial colony of New York. In the center of the city are three banks, within a stones throw of one another. in whose vaults more than $l1 ,000OOO has been deposited-every cent of It coal and iron money business of more than $50, ,000 GOO was done in 1905 in mining and manufacturing, and three hundred thou sand freight cars were handled in the Bir- mingham district.
 And who are the enterprising northern CTS whose capital opened up this land of opulence? Many of them are men of na- tional prominence, among them being Au gust Belmont. S. l.. Schoonmaker, Don H. Bacon, Cord Meyer, Benjamin F. Tracy, James T. Woodward, Alexis w. Thompson. J. Henry Smith, Henry R. Sloat Albert B. Boardman. J. c. Ma ben and G. Watson French.
 These men have built up the four great companies that control the situation-the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad com pany, the Republic Iron and Steel the Soss-Sheffield and the Alabama Consoli dated. The combined capitalization of the "big four is $76,000.OOO. All are successful concerns, though they are still obliged to spend an unusually large proportion of their earnings on Improvements.
 The Tennessee is the largest corporation in the south Half of the coal, iron and coke, and all of the steel made in Ala bama come from this giant company. It's magnitude is the wonder and pride of Alabamians With a pay roll of $1S00O, an output in 1905 of more than 100000 of coal, 600O00 of iron, 100000 tons of coke and 100000 tons of steel-with a property of 100000 square miles and dozens of mines and furnaces-it has become one of the most effective millionaire-making ma chimes in the country
 In the last five years it has paid out $7,OOOOOO to capital and $25000,0O0 to labor. It has spent $7000000 to bring it's mills and fur naces up to the Pittsburg level; and it is now adding to the wealth of the Uni ted States at the rate of $12,000,00O year. Every year it wrenches from nature enough of her treasures to fill a freight train that would reach from New York to the heart of Nebraska. While many of it's mining methods are primitive, it's steel mill at Ensley is one of the most completely automatic in the world-oper-