Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1916-03-21
Dixie Goes Ahead. 1.-The New Wild West
BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN.

all in less than year. Last
gang foreign laborers digging in the burrows
the skulls of two Confederate
soldiers They were placed exhibiie- III Cne window
a drug and later were stolen by Greek
That incident could have haDn"TAd anywhere else
in the world.
IIopewelI is hard to there is moth
ing like it. It is raw as a new bruise ugly crime
wiped it out and the next
day it sprang again in gaunt yellow frames out OF
its smoking ruin. 1t is not clay 1t is not even
a town. II is phenomenon 1t is human energy
making home of materials barren 1aOd,
of dozen and the need of fighting woEid
for powder.
This industry, and it has all the
marks of frontier life There the adventurous
from everywhere ready fight for their rights
lives narrow swarmng streets, the implanted
shacks, dance halls theaters, the easily
made and rapidly spent the freedom and the
that made the of the The stage coaches
jitneys, and there have been plenty of thrilling
hod-ups
At this point it must be said, to the detriment of
romance great credit of Hopeweu, that its
days of riot and license rapidly passing. Civic
pride has awakened. Politics is taking the place of
play. Men making homes for wives and moth
Hopewell will be sober, orderly city But
that's another story. First you the birth
and the strenuous infancy of this usy industrial baby
which shocked and astonished its emnently
spectacle the grand old commonwealth of Vr-
gina.
Eopewel had beginning before the European
That is a which citizens anxious to
emphasize. They claim that it is merely powder
town. a industrial because of its
location junction of James and Appomattox
| rivers. A century ago, they assert City
Point, which part of HopewelI destined
be capital of Virginia, but Richmond the
honor. and City Point remained quiet little
country village When the broke out the It'd Pont
Powder company needed cotton plant, and in
December 1914 it opened its Hopewell property
The story property story of a piece
of real that held for rise" nearly three
centuries. In 1921 King Charles of England. gave
grant of LOO along the the
Eppes family 1915, the Eppes family represented
by Mr. Richard Eppes and unmarried sisters
still living thar land a good many things had
happened tnereabOuts in the meantime. The first
school in America founded City Point and
wiped by Indian A couple of
fought Gransm his headquarters the Eppes
homestead, and Lincoln mis- last day earth
City Point These things, though interesting did
stimulate the price of real estate and the Du Pont
able to buy all the land it wanted
Eppes family for about $50 a They not
buy the whole estate, however
Then company began making powder and calling
for From all over the country they
Greeks and Russians and Turks and from
the north and from the south. They needed
houses live in, and April
Eppes able to sell little of mis- land for a
little better price Nobody believed that the boom
amounted anything, but it kept booming just the
same. BY Mr. Eppes selling his land on in
twenty-five foot lots, and his
to being milonaires. So the Eppes family have been
able cash in King Charles gift
The early real auctions at Hopewen were re-
garded something of a joke Lots along Hopewen
sold for $780, Now they selling for $4,000.
\ came down from Norfolk early days on a
spree. He insisted spending nearly all money
for lots. Before his friends could him
squandered $780, Then he spent the rest
drinks, and Petersburg to sober up. a week
returned, sober and worried, could get
his money back. He could several over But he
decided to hold Finally let go for
$4,000 Now they worth $4,000.
Little stories like that are too numerous to repeat
The records prove that they are true too One lot
changed hands thirteen times in Property is
sometimes sold three any transfer
is recorded. The terms of sale in big
written a cigarette paper.
Meantime a community of 80 900 people had grown
up without plan, government control was
housed shacks and tents 1t up o all
kinds and very few Every man carried
gun. often in plain sight Shooting attracted
tention whatever Six killed in a day was notn-
ing unusual Killing wops' "a general term for all
foreigners) recognized sport The section
of Hopewell is still called Death Valley.
The streets were lined with dance halls of the
worst character, liquor obtainabe blind
tigers forty different kinds These
packed every night with men, who had money
than they before and wanted to spend
it. Crime of all kinds fourished. To pull out wal
let roll of bills the street
as often A could walk block N
safety The jtneys operating between HOpewell and
Petersburg held up again and again of the
first steps behalf of order if law, by
party of citizens against these hghwaymen a
car filled with Each mad his gun hand
and ready. They drove slowly the narrow road
through swamps and pine forests. turn
ing four negroes jumped in front car covering
the passengers with their revOlvers and ordering
hands up The reply volIey killed three of
The other took to the woods were
fewer highway robberies after that
Cotton. former police sergeant Of Norfolk,
was the who cleaned Hopewell Without sin
gle shooting he rounded and expelled the
makers, until a few months Hopewen became almost
as orderly any other Ntown of it's size
population. Gun-totng walletsnatching and robbery
order of the day and night here
Before the leaves had fallen the who carried a
gun was exception and the court docket showed
little besides the inevitable DRINKS disorderlies.
So Hopewell thought the of its troubles were
over AS a mater of fact they hadn't begun.
ginning was fire in of frame shacks which
made up 80 cent Of the settlement, the