The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-10-25

reconnoisanee for a route for railroad from the Tennessee river to point on the Alabama and Tennessee river rail- road. surveyed to run from Selma on the Alabama, via Jacksonville and Gadsden to Guntersville on the Tennessee. The order explained that the purpose of the legislature was to make q final survey of the most practicable route Ito connect the Tennessee river with the navigable waters of the Mobile bay. with reference to the development of the mineral region of the state.'
 Where was "the mineral region?' The proposed new road was a branch road. It was not the South and North road running out from Montgomery to inter- sect the Alabama and Tennessee river road at Calera, for that road had not been even projected. The new road was a branch road intended to penetrate the mineral region, a territory without map or chart. Professor Tuomey, holding the chair of geology In the faculty of the University of Alabama. was required by law to traverse Jefferson county and the adjacent counties in his vacation to locate the mineral region This great man, with unerring instinct, found the thing he sought. The engineer got from him the meager facts upon which the legisla- ture had undertaken one of the great of all America.
 Parenthetically mentioned here, let it be remembered that 90 years later, In 1888, John s. Milner surveyed a line of ba eta E1apeprq the Tennessee, via Tuscaloosa, to a point on the Bigbee river in Clarke county He reported to the legislation that the state had made a mistake in locating what is now the South and North road. The avowed object being to empty on the of Mobile the commerce in min erals, the initial railroad should have been on the line from Florence through Greene, Marengo. Clarke Co the Bigbee, instead of through the poorer agricultural region now traversed by the South and North. Moreover, the line sur veyed in 1888 cut the Warrior coal fields the center, while the early sur vey lay near the eastern border only.
 The engineer with enthusiasm contend ed that the whole line from Florence to the lower Bigbee would cost no more to build than the trestle and bridges over the rivers and swamps cost on the Mont gomery and Mobile line. A singular coin- cidence was developed by the survey, that there Is not 10 miles differ ence between the surveyed western line and the constructed eastern line, the distance from Florence to Mobile by the survey is almost the exact distance from Decatur to Mobile by the present Louis vile and Nashville road.
 MT Miners report said the engine that could draw only 20 coal cars from Bir- to Mobile on the Louisville and Nashville could draw 40 such cars from Tuscaloosa to Mobile by the western sur vey Indeed, he insisted that a train of loaded coal cars turned loose at Tusca loosa would travel over the western line to it's destination at Mobile by gravity.
 The phenomenal resources of our state are interestingly brought into view by the suggestion of so competent an en- gineer as MT. Miner, that the state erred in the selection of the eastern line of Initial railroad to develop the mineral region, while the later western line discovered offered so sure advantages over the former.
 The state has done, and is yet doing, in literature to preserve the fame of individuals who have appeared for good in its political and professional service. Statesmen, soldiers, physicians, lawyers, the clergy have received well merited immortality of fame through the histories But even the stimulus of an
 commercial age has failed thus far to confirm the claims of the class of men who built the South and North rail- road upon our nobler examples of citi- zenship.
 r. M. Gilmer. Jr., of Montgomery led the movement to build the south anu North railroad. In childhood he was. car ried to Kentucky from Georgia, in his youth rode to Tennessee to teach school, at the age of 20 years he started on horse back from Clarllsvile on the bank of the Cumberland, for the village of Montgon- cry, on the banks of the Alabama.
 MT. Glmer prospered in his final homo in extraordinary degree. He ULll1 a,a
 immense brick warehouse on Commerce street and became a shipping and reeeiv-
 ing merchant for the rich river trade. He bought thousands of acres of the best cot ton lands and hundreds of negroes to them.
 All this while he kept before him some fragments of the red ore that he had dls- mounted, as he passed over Red noun tain, to put into his saddle bags as a curiosity. As wealth from the cotton trade and the cotton plantations accumu- lated, as if by magic on his hands he chung closer and closer to the dream that Ie Woulu Duiiu q idHludi lfpifi tiit uooi of his big cotton sheds in Montgomery, over and through Red mountain to Nash vile, and would magnify incaculably this trade midway between deep water at Mobile and the inexhaustible ore.
 The war had progressed a year. The government seemed to have but one department equal to the task put upon it, and that was the ordnance de- partment directed by the marvellous genius of Gen. Josiah Gorgas.
 Private enterprise, of any description. by the government at Rich mond. was plainly impossible if related to government interest. So F. NJ. Gilmer, Jr., and John T. Mllner, engineer out of a job, went together to Richmond and under the encouragement of General Cor gas made a contract with the govern ment to build the South and North road foi the purpose of bringing pig iron to be made on Red mountain to the foun- dries of the government in different places.
 Gilmer built the road, Milner was his engineer He opened Helena coal mines and built two charcoal furnaces at Ox- moor. The coal was shipped to every railroad center east of the Mississippi. The charcoal iron from Oxmoor made cannon balls for Lee at Pittsburg, for Beaureserd at Charleston. for Buchanan in the great battle of August 2, 1884 in Mobile harbor. between the Confederate ram 'Tennessee'' single handed and the whole fleet of Farragut strapped to the mast"
 Engineer Milner had planned to build a city in Shades valley, one mile south of Grace's Gap. as soon as he could get the through Brooks Gap to the south of the location selected. Brooks Gap was solid rock. Not an ounce of powder for blasting could bc found. While tho faithful laborers were hard at work with 1,icl. md lar chinninr nH the rnclS