The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1915-11-12
The City that Was Never NM,

high Valley line you will. about GO
miles from the Hudson, pass sta
ton marked Portal Unless YOU have
boot 10 unfortunate as to take To- /
cal your train will not stop, but the
grade at that point will give you an
opportunity TO make a mental picture
OF the little there IL to see.
, The valley is nearly a milo villa.
O great level stretch of country svr.
rounded on three sides nv hills.
Skirting the foot of these hills nm
either side sou will see The one mr.
the other of the railroads. A do,eS
houses surround each statio,. ,rA a
general store ana black smi,h shop
almost complete the picture. mn r,ot-
ter which Tine of rf.ilroad Won ,,,o
But this is not all. Stretching o,..u
across the valley alonq the t,,r,n,lo
"ading frofn onc se;tle,ne IN tho
other, you WIN notice a solid st,no
wall about seven feet high, suhsten-
TALLY built, bpt seemingly without
any reasonable excuse for eNistcnce
II has non Q and vet IL Is tho ovor-
present Reminder of few brief DAYS.
wheh - years ago the native sons
OF frrtal dreamed ot an industrial
ehi' re, of which Tits valley was to
~ the tceming, surging center. The
hilG were to belch forth gcysers of
gold and the century old pastures
were Ia yield the fabulous values of
Broadway corners. Almost in a
day Portal rose in population from
10S 10 1000 souls. and before the
simple-minded farm folk adjusted
themselves To the startling rapidlty
with which modern commerce moves
IL had dropped back TO 100 persons
Only the wall was left.
Seycnty-fve years ago. when New
Jersey stood among the foremost of
iron producing states, there had been
forge at Portal. From it's hills
was obtained ore bearing iron, not in
large quantities. but still sufficient to
make the manufacture of iron by the
simple processes of the day profitable.
Wood for charcoal was abundant and
limestone was plentiful. For a
quarter of a century the forge -four
ished. until Peter Cooper set up a
large and more modern plant at Ok
ford, 20 miles away. and sold his
product so much cheaper that the
older pioneer was driven from the
field.
In 1890 thousands OF Italians were
pouring into New York from the west
where they had been employed I'm
railroad construction. IL was spring
and the foreigner did not wish to go
home until autumn. The labor mar
kets of the east were glutted, and al
though nearly every one of these
Italians carried 500 or so on his
person none of them cared to spend
a summer in idleness. Great hordes
o2these unemployed laborers gather
eW in a narrow street one block east
of lower Broadway and from their
small rear Office two buccaneers OF
finance" who spent their days won
daring how the next months rent
was TO be paid. observed them. One
of these men had friend In the real
estate business, and in the course of
a conversation a few months before
the land dealer had mentioned a big
tract of land in New Jersey which
had recently been placed in his hands
for sale. The story of the old forge
had been told. and the two had given
over an idle hour to specializing upon
the prospects to starting an iron
boom and selling the land OFF in
town lGtsThen some one had come
and suggested an adjournment to the
bar in No. / Broadway, and the sub
ject had been forgotten.
The sight of the wealth of unem-
ployed Italian energy under the Of
flee window had renewed the sub
ject in the mind OF the shoestring
promoter. Casually he stepped
down into the street, and picking
out an intelligent-looking Italian Sc
cured lot of information. That af-
ternoon he looked up his friend, the II
land agent, and took a forty day OPP
tt<,n on the New Jersey land for 81.
An hour later he had borrowed
enough to rent cheap ground-noor
Office on Whitehall Street. The few
Office fixtures were moved there, and
~ next morning poorly inscribed
sign decorated the win
dow. 1t was written in Italian, and
a young man of that nationality oc-
cupied a desk i'm the Office. Roughly
the placard announced
that the employment agents within
desired to hire 1000 men at So per
Jov an CONSERVATION work 60 miles