The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-24
For the Good of
 the Community

TN the month of March over 21, 900 tons A of freight passed through the War rior river locks at Tuscaloosa In trans porting this freight 56 tow boats and 125 barges were used. That is the limit of the present equipment on the Warrior.
 Had there been double the number of tow boats and barges the tonnage would have been doubled. The freight has been and is awaiting shipment by way of the Warrior and the only thing that prevents it moving that way is the lack of boats and barges.
 Two of the four self-propelled steel barges building for that service will be delivered to the management within two or three months The Birmingham and the Tuscaloosa are ready to take their initial plunge at St. Louis Most of the machinery has been installed and the builders promise to have the boats com pleted and on their way to the Warrior with the least possible delay.
 When these two are out of the way the construction of two others, the Mobile and the Gulfport, will begin. Both will probably be completed by fall.
 These boats moving under their own power, will make the trip from St. Louis down the Mississippi river to New Or leans, thence through the inland ship canal to Mobile bay and up the Mobile and Tombigbee rivers to the Warrior. { Each has capacity of 2,300 tons and as Jo, nf txryO trips a month between BMmingport and Mobile the first two will add about 12,O0O tons one way month to the transporta- tion capacity of the Warrior. When the Mobile and the Gulfport cone late in the year, an additional 12,000 tons month will be available.
 In the meantime tow boats and barges now under construction will have been completed and the fifty steel containers building by the Ingalls, Iron Works Com pany of Birmingham will be ready for de- livery by that time. In all the river will be able to handle something like 100000 tons of freight a year.
 The steel boats building at St. Louis are 280 feet long, or almost three-fourths the length of city block. They will make very imposing spectacle as they steam their way along the Warrior river laden with the products of the mines and the mills and factories of the Birmingham district.
 Birmingham has not yet realized the great i'm portance of the Warrior river, Assuming that the freight rate is $2.00 ton, which is certainly under the actual average rate on all commodities, the saving to Birmingham in freight charges alone will be $400,0O0 a year. or nearly three times the cost of the terminal facilities now under construction at Birmingport In other worlds as- suming that 100000 tons of freight are handled annually and that no additional terminal faci- ties other than those now being built at Biraning- port are provided the citizens of Birmingham will receive back $400,000 each year as direct return on the $15O000 they are putting into the termin- as at Birmingport. That looks like profitable investment.
 Not only is it profitable investment but it means great things for Birmingham and the whole of north Alabama, which have the advan- tages of these low rates.
 Imports from the tropics to the south of us ex- ceeded $2,000,000 last year. Mobile is nearer than any other port to most of the tropical coun- tries. There appears no good reason why large percentage of these imports should lot come to the port of Mobile and much of it find it's distrb-