The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-09-10
INDUSTRIAL GAINS HERE ARE NOW MORE MARKED THAN EVER Twenty-0ne furnaces Are In Blast And All Lines Are
 Gaining GREAT ENLARGEMENTS PLANNED AT STEEL PLANT Old Men Are Being Taken Back at the Mines and All Companies Are
 Fast Reaching Normal
 Conditions.

All branches of business in Birming- ham are improving. The very day the miners strike was called off-August 31-general trade began to revive and the continued improvement has been marked.
 Industrial conditions are growing more satisfactory every day and will soon be normal again. The coal opera tors are re-employing their old mer who were on the strike, so fast as they can make room for them, only those agitators suspected of lawlessness be- ing excluded from the rolls of the com panies.
 During the strike the Sloss- Sheffield Steel and Iron company shut down it's mines at Coalburg and Blossburg in the Brookside group but it's three mines at Blossburg are being cleaned up and will be in full operation within the next few days, and 1t Is understood that nearly all their mines will be turning out coal before the end of the month.
 The Tennessee company's coal pro- duction is increasing. Before the strik ended it's output had reached almost 5000 tons a day, which was about as much as that company had mined on any day since last January.
 The Tennessee company's new steel plant at Ensley is making exceptionally high records from time to time and its September operations will show some remarkably fine results. The steel plant, both for magnitude and for mod. ern design, is attracting the attention of the industrial world, but as exten sive as the plant Is, 1t is to be added to shortly and the additional develop ment work agreed upon by the United Steel corporation, in control of the Tennessee company, will mean an eX- penditure of many millions. The fact is that the United States Steel eXpan-
 sion in the Birmingham district is yet
 in its infancy so to speak. It is now estimated that the Tennes . see companys pay rolls will be more than doubled within the next two or three years.
 The Birmingham pig iron market is
 somewhat quiet this week. but it re- 1 mains firm at s13 on a No. ? foundry basis
 harly III the year only 10 furnaces Tn Alabama were in operation. Including the -Sheffield's furnace at Florence, which will be lighted today or tomorrow, the number in blast now reaches 21, dis tributed as follows: Tennessee company seven. Sloss-Sheffield company five, Ala bama Consolidated three, Republic two. Woodward two, Birmingham Coal and Iron at Vanderbilt one, and Central in Tuscaloosa county one.
 1 President Maben of the Sloss- Sheffield company said yesterday that his com | panys Lady Ensley furnace at Sheffield | would be started up again within a few | days and that six furnaces would then 1 be in operation.
 Of the furnaces now running five of l the Tennessee Company's are on basic i iron and the Woodward company is also l filling a large basic order l No large contracts for 1909 delivery have 1 been closed. but inquiries for foundry iron are active. Some iron makers are | Hnclined to quote s14 to N45O, while 1 others think that $13.5 would De high enough and that 1t would pay better in l the long run.
 l By the way, the United States Pipe 1 company is in the market for 10000 tons for this years delivery. Taken all to- 1 gether the Birmingham districts indus l trial life Is more buoyant now than it has been at any time within the past 12 l months.