The Tupelo journal. (Tupelo, Miss.) 1876-1924, 1908-10-23
Opportunity and Development.

completed IN April, 1861. The
war between the States immedi
ately followed, and both Federal
and Confederate armies destroy.
ed its bridges and twisted its
rails from Colombus, KY, to
Mobile, Ala. as they conceived
the exigencies of the situation re-
quired. 1t had to be practically
rebuilt after the war.
Its builders secured d nation
of public lands from tbs Federal
Congress. tn. declared pur-
pose of the A,1 Of Congress
donating the ubIic lands to the
Mobile & Ohio Rrilroad Company
was to establish a national high
way connecting the Gu, of Mex
leo with the great Northwest.
The Mobile & Ono Railroad mas
now fully net the expectations
OF its orig nal builders. AttAe
Port of NOBLE, on the Cuff OF
Mexico, it now receives from
Central and South America a
la" volume of tropical fruit,
Wi, it carries to the North
We and in turn receives grain
anu grain products, packing house
and varied manufactured prod
ucts, which it delivers at the
Port of Mobile to vessels that
reach all the principal markets
in South Central America.
BANANAS.
The handling of bananas is a
notable example of this traffic
in tropical fruits. The Company
has at Mobile elaborate terminals
for the berthing of banana boats,
which terminals are equipped
with the most facilities for the
rapid and safe handling of the
fruit business. Notwithstanding
the delicate nature of the banana,
it is conveyed from one's~hold to
cars with great dispatch. Three
electrical conveyors are on the
fruit wharf, and are so construct
ed that they will fit the matches
of any ship. Dispatch is essen
tlal in handling fruit, and by the
use OF the conveyors a carload
of bananas at the terminals of
this Company can be loaded in
less than five minutes. 1t has
frequently occurred that the cargo
OF a banana boat cosisting of, say,
forty carloads of fruit, has been
discharged st Mobile and trans
ported to st. Louis a distance of
644 miles, in e hours. About
four hours would be consumed in
dlscharging the fruit from the
boats into cars and "A hours for
transporting,i it to st. Louis.
This business has grown until
the Company moves about twelve
thousand carl a lsof bananas per
annum.
ElNEAPPLE5.
THIS Company has traffi: ar
ranrementS with the WunSon
Steam ship Line, operating be-
tween Mobile and Havana and
other Cuoan ports. and through
this connection the pineapple
movement from Cuba has been
frosted by the Mobile & Ohio
Railroad Company, as it create S
a return long haul tonnage for
cars which have been loaded
South with merchandise. This
traffic has grown until the ship
ment of pineapples this season
amounted to six hundred car
loads; a movement which begin
only four yrars ago. La addition,
the cargoes of sisal from the
South American countries also
create a large item of revenue.
VEGETABLES.
Truck farming around Mobile and
along the line of the Mobile &
Ohio Railroad. as far north as
Tennessee, has been largely de-
veloped in the last few years,
By reason of earlier. seasons on
the Gulf the handling of the
product of the gardners in the
Mobile District is finished before
that of the growers farther north
has begun, thus protracting the
movement of this valuable traffic.
GRAIN and ALFALFA.
| The company's line of railroad
runs through a very rich and
productive prairie country, COM
mencing at Wahaiak, Miss, and
extending to Okolona, Miss, a
distance of about eighty miles.
This broad territofy during the
Civil war grew enough grain
to supply the western army, ar
tillery and cavalry horses of the
Confederacy as far east as Allan
ia. 1t was called the Egypt OF
the Confederacy. It grows ex'
ceptional cotton and corn. About