The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-01-01

The marble s1,00O,000 post office Is nearing completion. The Masonic order of Alabama is building beautiful 1 temple and auditorium in Birmingham at a cost of $75o,000 OTHER ACHIEVEMENTS Achievements that are not great in dollars and cents, but great in other ways were these:
 Organization of the Alabama Retail Merchants association, which soon at- ] tained a membership of several thou sand and has unified the retailers Of the state in matters of consequence to them. Reduction of the 1920 license schedule in Birmingham is one of the first accomplishments. Organization of the Junior Chamber of Commerce. The strong young men of the city have banded together sew eral hundred and more and are at work for the common good.
 Organization of the Alabama Manu- lecturers association. headquarters in Birmingham. This has served to weld important industrial interests into a common machine for their advance ment and protection.
 Organization of the Merchants and Manufacturers association of the Chamber of Commerce. This organiza- tion has established the transportation fare rebate system, and will under take an extensive campaign for ex- tension of Birmingham's trade terri tory.
 Location in Birmingham of one of the Old Colony clubs. It has hand some quarters in the Tutwiler and serves more than 200 leading business men.
 CIVIC IMPROVEMENT
 Looking to the pleasure of the people, the community sing this year reached point of real and intrinsic merit. The Sunday afternoon concerts are delight full and overflow audiences attest the pleasure that is afforded.
 The city has appropriated funds for a community band, which will soon be d regular feature of community life.
 Birmingham has enjoyed a year of remarkabl productivity, whose chief characteristic has been its failure of in terruption. Beginning with the steel strike in the autumn of 1919, not a single iron or steel industry has lost one days time incident to labor trou- ble. The steel strike, the outlaw strike and like troubles that tied up other industrial centers for months passed by this district. The coal strike has not affected out put. The mines are turning out more than the normal production, and no plant in Alabama has at any time shut down as much as a day for lack of coal.
 NEW HIGH LEVEL
 Retail trade reached new high level in 1920. It was not thought possible, but it was done Christmas shopping and Christmas shopping went ahead of last year.
 Savings deposits increased, even
 during the holidays. Savings de-
 posits in the state banks of Ala
 bamn grew from $14,OOO,OOO in 1917
 to S23, ,OO6OOO in 1919 and to $28,-
 OOo,0O0 In the fall of 1920.
 Turn of the year finds the leading industries prepared for another big year. New price schedules have been adopted, the adjustment process ap- pears to be over and many plants are to resume in full next week.
 Appended are tabloid statistics of in- dustrial and other forms of progress.
 BY-PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT Sheffield by-product
 plant, 12o Sen, et-solvay ovens ........... .........$ 5000, 900 T. c. I. additions 70 Fair
 field by-products plant, 154
 Peppers ovens ..., ....... $500, 900 Alabama by-products plant
 60 Koppers ovens ... ..... 5000 900
 s15,500 900
 These additions to Alabama by product manufacture Increased the number of plants from B to ', ovens from SAY to 1,1Sf and mat the total mi no a per annum and coke -producii capacity [, 100000 tons per annum.
 In addition to reducing ths price of pig iron manufacture by $2 per ton, the chemical by-products are standard articles of trade.
 Birmingham Is now lighs ,d and heated by by-product gas { om the plant, Fairfiel by the T. c. I.'s and several Indus ries get their boiler fuel from the Alasama by products plant.
 The international balloon "a es of s2o were staged at tho Slost,- Sheffield plant, coming there on account of the superior quality of the gas.
 IN STRUCTURAL LINES Two high schools under Hon-
 struction.. n...................... ... .$1. 600 900 Auditorium, site purchased, 9con-
 struction to cnsue in the sarly
 spring ...,....................A. A..... 7o.up temple and auditqrium,
 now being built ....,.,... 4...... S000OU Marble postoffice and federal
 building nearing completi9n .... 100000 Expended in building bounty
 schools ....................4. 4..... s1s,oOo Building port of Birmingham .... 3OOOoO Pressed Steel Car Works, deferred
 to in another column .o...... 4.ooouo General construction in city prop
 CT for Il months ........l .1..... A24goo Suburban construction esti-
 mated ..................... .......... s.op,uou
 SOME NEW INDUSTRIES Lehigh Portland Cement company,
 stalking off ground for 100000
 barrel factory & GOO OUU