The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-08-22
Some High Points in Mobile
 History During Century

are mostly of brick, and the land being valuable, proprietors have found it to their advantage to construct good, sub stantial and in numerous instances costly and elegant buildings. Thus the destruc- tive and purifying element has been main ly conducive in improving the sanitary condition of the city,
 One accustomed tc the wide streets of new-made cities will wonder how narrow those old Mobile streets could have been, in the first place. if they were widened after the fire, as the historian rlates. They knew in those days that Mobile had great commercial future, for the author of sketch says:
 "But no feature of our improvements could be more marked than those intend- ed to subserve commercial purposes. The wharves were extended greatly. Com merce street filled out and built up on both sides, and Front street was established as the water front. Perhaps we have encroached on the river more than com mercial requirements demanded, but the space filled up has given us the whole width of Commerce street, noble com mercial avenue, and furnished room for larger and more commodious stores and warehouses than previously existed. A glance at our cotton receipts, and conse- quent increase in other business, will readily account for such improvements" :"
 The yellow fever epidemic of 1899 was attributed by the chronicler to the hand of the incendiary. The mosquito theory in regard to the transmission of the fever was not known in those days, so it would be interesting to learn just how the incendiary proceeded bring in the contagion, without the aid of the stegomyia. The fires of the same year were attributed to the christening hand of divine providence in addition to incendiarism.
 Mobile expected great results from the building of the Mobile and Ohio rail- road, which started as one mans idea in l84S, and was a concrete fact when the booklet was printed in 1855; that is, the road had been completed nearly to Colum- bus, Miss.
 One thing that Mobile possessed in it's earliest days as an American seaport has remained with it, and that is an abiding faith in it's own future. A hundred years ago, when it's inland commerce was car ried by flatboats propelley by hand, and by two new and small steamboats, the 'Harriot" and the Cotton Plant, Mo- bile was planning for a deep water chan nel to the gulf, for bigger steamboats and extended river trade. There is nothing in the book quoted to indicate that the writer had any knowledge or information of the coal and iron in the Warrior fields, CT had even thought of the possible canalization of the Warrior river; but he was strong on the subject of shipbuildlng, for he says:
 "Shipbu,lding-tha greatest of all arch itecture-is not neglected by us. We have several snipyards, as well for construc- tion as for repairs. Within the past two years two fine vessels, of about 800 tons burden have been launched, one by the Messrs Meaher, the other recently by the Dry Dock Company, The Meahers have also constructed large three -masteu schooner and steamboat Of the frst class, and have now on the stocks steamer of the largest capacity and of ex- cellent model These vessels are partlc- ularized because of their size and great cost, but many smallr ones have silently made their way into theirsnative element, unhonored and unsung. Shipbuilding IS not merely an experiment here. It cannot be doubted for the future
 NEEDS OF TODAY
 The entire tonnage of those monsters of the deep would not equal that of the Montgomery City, launched at the Chick asaw plant, Mobile recently. So the un- known writer of '55 was a prophet in HIS day, on the subject of future shippuilo- ing at that port.
 With a thirty-foot channel to the gulf, rivers opened to year-around naVfgatioh to the coal fields and steel manufacturing QlStrlCt or Aldbdina, a Sc'Si i'iiiS barge line to lead the way in building and sustaining water-borne commerce only one thing is needed to make Ala bama's seaport exceed in importance tne roesate dreams of these early propnets' That amendment the state constitu- ton. proposed by the last legislature, to be voted on November 2 will give the state control of it's seaport and lend Ala bama's credit to the development or the facilities, there. The adoption Of that amendment is not an issue local to MO bile When Admiral Tarragut bottled up the port, in the sixties, all Aiaoama ieie if Table salt went to S1 per pound in of the blockade. Any stop rage of the port by commercial warfare tomorrow will have the same tendency; and the people of the interior will suffer in consequence.