The Coolidge examiner., 1932-09-30

acres. They bring up the products
OF the southern states and of dis
tant lands-sugar, coffee, bauXite,
sulphur. burlap, sisal-and carry
back the grain and manufactures
of the Middle West. Like the pi-
rogues and flatboats from Illinois,
which so years ago drifted down
the river with flour. smoked meat,
and corn juice "mOonshine," these
steel barges plod eight miles an
hour-no faster than Marquette pad
died in his birch canoe.
The highway leaves Cairo, curv-
ing through the OZarks. Back In
the hills families are living in
primitive log cabins. "Egypt's fields
of cotton, which dare frost but es-
cape the boil weevil, change around
Anna into orchards of apples,
peaches, and pears and beds Of
asparagus and strawberries.
Beauty spots are preserved as
state forests and parks. Bald Knob,
1,030 feet high, crowns a hardwood
tract. Another reserve contains the
only stand of short-leaf pine In the
state. Fern Cliff park has a wealth
of fern-covered powders and water
falls, and In Giant City park nature
has lined great square rocks like
streets. At Tunnel Hill the Illinois
Central has bored a 7.000-foot tun-
mel as part of the 160-mile cutoff
between Edgewood, Ill, and Fulton,
Ky.
Crucible clay OF the highest
grade comes from around Carbon
dale, north of Anna, and 54 of the
102 counties In Illinois produce coal,
most OF which is mined in adjacent
Franklin and Williamson counties.
Through the Coal Fields.
Marion, where Robert G. Inger-
soil studied TO be a lawyer and
where Gen. John A. Logan made the
speech which kept southern Illinois
in the Union. is 10 miles east. Near
it is the town once known as
"bloody" Herrin. Politics has
changed and the barber shops and
stores now have signs in their win
dows, This placed viii be closed at
noon for prayer"
Benton is farther north, over a
straight seam Of coal from TO IA
feet thick, estimated to contain two
and a half billion tons. 1t is the
center of vast mines, five of which
In different years have held world
records for production. Orient No.
2 at West Frankfort. often bring
ing to the surface between 1900
and $4,000 tons a day, Is one Of the
largest coal mines in the world. II
is electrically equipped, and its locker
rooms and baths for miners. a re-
quirement of the state law, could lave
regiment from black to white
without overcrowding. The deep
est bituminous mine shaft in the
country. more than 1000 feet, Is
near Assumption.
Our automobile highway new
crosses the almost-forgotten trail
followed by Col. George Rogers
Clark in 177S. Patrick Henry sent
this youth of twenty-five and a band
of Kentucky frontiersmen to estab-
lish the vast Northwest territory as
part of Virginia. They came down
the Ohio and unfurled the Stars and
Stripes, for the first time in Illinois,
over Fort Massac. now a park.
Grain and Oil.
Fields of wheat and oats alter
nate with corn, and oil replaces coal
under the surface, as the road runs
north through Centralia. Oil was
discovered in Clark county 26 years
ago, and once the state produced
more oil than Pennsylvania. 1t still
produces some 100000 barrels a
year, but it is as refining and dis
tribution center that Illinois is most
important to the oil industry. The
pipe lines radiate to the Atlantic, the
gulf, and Canada from Wood river
and RoXana.
One Of these lines follows the old
trail of the covered wagon between
Vincennes and Cahokia. The first
mail in Illinois came along this
route in 1905. Towns were spaced
off every % miles. which then was
good days journey.
At Olney is one of the FIVE game
havens in the state and the home
of the late Robert Ridgway, former
ly curator of the division of birds
in the United States National mu-
scum, and world authority on these
feathered creatures. With 365 vari.
eties, he rated Illinois rich in bird
life.
Returning to the north-to-south
highway, we come to Vandalia, due
north of Centralia. Here is the old
State Capitol building of 1S20-1S37.
later a county courthouse, and now
a museum. Its architecture of
past age contrasts with the tlrab
two-story buildings around the Van.
dalia city square.