The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-03-26
Visit to EnsLey By Former Resident Calls
 Up Happy Memories
Something About the Men of Former Days Who Helped Lay the Foundation Upon Which Industrial Greatness
 of Ensley Has Been Built
By C, H. MANDY

steel plant which was started some 70 years ago, to which has been added rom time to time new departments and the old ones enlarged, until today it takes high bank with the big mills of the world. We will speak of the steel plant later.
 Among the industrial leaders to whose foresight and sound business judgment much of the early development of En- sley is due, the names of George B. Mccormack and Erskine Ramsay stand eminent. Under their leadership as general manager and chief engineer, re- spectively, the T. C. 1: company made great progress and many new enter prises, including the steel mill, were brought into being during their regime.
 Among the superintendents at the blast furnaces who brought them to their high est efficiency was the late James shan non, who was succeeded by his son, John J. shannon, under whose supervision the furnaces made some of their greatest records at that time.
 It was with the advent of the steel corporation, however. that the Ensley plants saw their greatest developments and but little or any of the original bias. furnaces and steel mill remains.
 One of the earliest superintendents of the blast furnaces was A. E. Barton, who AS Sllii iciltIlbtlCu ny d large tiICl6 Ol friends here. A man of exceptional abl- ity, he successfully operated the plant through the trying times of the panic ot 1894 He was man of sound judgment and was never known to get ruffled or excited even under the most trying cir cumstances. He was a great lover of dogs and fancy stock of all kinds, and at one time owned bull terrier, said to have been the worlds champion of his xx.h,D 1o1 tbA fnlr InSf Nf
 living thing before or since his time The dog inspired a feeling akin to terror among the negroes and MT. Barton need ed neither lock nor key for his house while the dog was around
 MADE SUPREME SACRIFICE
 Speaking of MT. Barton, his only son, house that stands near Nineteenth street in the white quarters, made the su- preme sacrifice" in the early part of the war. Young Robert spent his childhood in Ensley, but was taken to England when his father severed his connection
 with the T. c. I. company. The boy. however, was proud of the city and state of his birth, and when budding into man. hood returned to America and to Bir-
 mingham and entered the employment of the Woodward Iron company. When war was declared in 1914 young Barton inn
 mediately offered his services to the British government and entered the avia- tion corps. While in battle with the Huns over the German lines his plane caught fire and he went to the earth and death.
 Today somewhere in Germany" in a marked grave lies the body of Robert Barton, the first Ensley boy to give his life for world freedom.
 OTHER PLANTS Among the other plants that have added much to Ensley's prestige in the industrial world is the Semet Solvay by-product plant, the first to be erected in the south which has been in successful operation from the day it started anu it's products are carried to every mar ket in the world.
 Adjoining the Semet- Solvey plant is l that of the BarreH Manufacturing com pany, another plant whose products are known and used in every section of the country.
 There are a number of other minor n- dustries in the Steel City, all of them con /, tributing to Ensleys industrial promi-
 hence and it's material prosperity.