The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1915-06-22
OVER $4,000 IN
UNNAMED TOWN
Remarkable Growth of Pop0la.
ton at Site of Dupont'S
New Plant.
(Staff Correspondent New Yort
Times

A0Nd1I ICSpokioCAt New owl
Times.)
This is dated H~opewell. AS a ma
ter of fact the town is so new tina. h,
doesn't know what its name is. Inns.
inc a TOnopah or a Goldfield-wjtb-
cut the mines-lumped down in tn
Oldest sleepiest part of the Old IT..
minion-that's Hopewell.
Last November Hopewell was a sid.
ing or a branch line Of the Norfolk 4
Western Railroad. The Dupont.6e
Nemours Powder Company cam
along and bought 1900 acres of farm
land, running down on one side N
the James river. They strung a To-
foot barbed wire barricade around
the tract and began digging for foun-
dation and putting up brick aid
steel buildings for another big factory
for high explosives.
Today the company has two huge
%guncotton plants working night and
day, and a third building is going un
as rapidly as material can be dumped
on the ground and hundreds of labor
| ers can put it in place..
April l the building at Hopewell
flag station to a villege of perhaps 500
people. Today it has a population Of
more than 1900, and it's growing by
leaps and pounds.
April l the building at Hopewei
comprised those of the Dupont com
pany-two mills and three or four
rows of galvanized iron barracks for
housing the labOrerS. Today il has a
midway extending a mile and a quar-
ter along the railrOad-now grown
to the main spur and a regular net
work Of sideshacks, tents. galvanized
iron sheds and every imaginable shell
ter, with hundreds of men working
night and day on more shacks, more
buildings, more sheds, to say moth
ing of the 500 or more cottages the
company is building for the accom-
mediation Of it's employees.
April | lots along the Midway -
feet front by IS feet deep were selling
for from $40 to 500, those nearest
the railroad station bringing the high
est price. May l lots a quartz Of a
mile down the track either way from
the station sold for $500 and up
ward. Today a lot anywhere along
t the middle of, the Midway cannot be
bought for less than $4,000 OF $4,000.
and plenty Of people are not only will
: ing but anxious to buy them at such
r prices. The same lots can be rented
S II one wants to pay $4OO a month for
the use of the land and build his own
t shack or storeroom.
Y I said the town is so new it doesn't
really know what it's name is. The
powder company's employees call II
; Dupont. Petersburg people-Pe.ers-
! burg is about Is miles ~away--still cali
= it Hopewell, which was its name when
: it was just a flag station on the
;, branch line Of railroad. Others call Il
City Point, though City Point really
" is about two miles away through the
woods. Farmers from h~ereabouts Ill
call It New Town and let it go at that
When a real pOstoffce is established
here it will probably be named Dl'
/ pont.
=, It is the biggest development pro-
iarf VIRGINIA hos Lnnuyn in oil itS his
3, tory. There has never been anythlne
n like it in the Old Dominion. From
4. population of not more h 500 Of
+ so to a population Of 1900 and more
l. in so days is, to say the east, goiLE
l. some; and that is what Hopewell ha'
is done; and all because the EuropeaI
l. war made it necessary for the Dupon
company to build a big new factor.
ID for turning out high explosives.
l began to hear about Hopewell a
Richmond. only there they call 1t DU
Id popt. At the railroad station 1t va
a stated that Italians, Greeks, Hungarl
ans, Poles, Jamaican Negroes, reg
s. resentatives OF every nationality, al
ar most, under the sun, had been goIn
N to he new town by the hundreds 70
,e the last two months.
va At Petersburg one is GREETED VII
h Auto for Hopewel1. sir; going rigf
over" Take you to Dupont, cal -s
over in the big car" and 50 Of
Everybody in Petersburg and vicinit
who owns a machine is running II 3
q sort Of stage coach over to the Nc
town. Boys who don't look to be
day e Is years, gray-haired me
and men OF all the ages between hay
become jitney drivers, and practica-I
every one Of them thinks. or seems
be think, that he is a Vanderbilt GA
er racer. The Is miles of what used
nv be a fairly good pike between Peter
burg and Hopewell is traversed e&c
~ way by hundreds Of automobiles %
10 and night. The result is that the OK
IN good pike today resembles a streak
dust, ankle deep-after a rain the du
~ is a more or less soupy mud
. which had been dumped hundreds
wagon loads of powders in assert,
7! ~ sizes. 1t costs from Is cents 70
III to ride over from Petersburg to HOP
we'll, the 25-cent fare being on al