The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1932-12-30

Prepared by National Geographic Society.
Washington, D. C--WNU Service
@MGHTLY more than half CEN
fury ago, Alabama was almost
" wholly an agricultural region and
Birmingham q small railroad
junction town. To-day the state, though
still numbered among the southern
cotton-growing regions, has more than
$500 industrial establishments and
Birmingham, now a city of more than
q quarter Of a million inhabitants, is
called the Pittsburgh Of the South"
While Washington, first President,
struggled with a new nations many
problems, and Paris still rocked from
revolutionary disorders, white pioneers
from Virginia, the Carolinas and Geor-
gia began TO penetrate Alabama.
Some were settling along the Tombig-
bee on land claimed by both Spain and
the United States. Some, as traders,
founded crude posts that grew TO
towns; others, married 10 Indian
women, took no part in the life Of new
white colonies. Occasionally there was
the renegade, or fugitive from Allan
tic coast justice, as Savannah Jack"
boasting he had slain so many men
that he could swim in their blood,
were IL collected in one pool"
But the historic rush of home-seek
ers, which was TO put tens of thou
sands of whites on Alabama lands
within a generation, did not begin till
after 1900. When treaties with the
Choctaws in 1902 and 1905 threw open
rich lands for settlement, new routes
of travel were opened; and the human
tide moved into Alabama, along with
other great migratory tides TO the
west. By 1908 thousands had staked
out homes in the picturesque Tennes-
see valley, which crosses northern Ala
baIna.
The old immigrant or Federal Road"
from Georgia west was to Alabama
what the ancient Via Appia was to the
country south Of Rome. The trek and
trudge over it was so continuous, says
one early writer, that for days, jour-
neying against the immigrant tide, he
was always in sight Of wagon trains,
pack horses, and long files of tramp
ing slaves. whitney's new cotton gin
helped start these men west and ex-
tended slavery. England, after her in
dustrial revolution, was bidding for
cotton, and rich, cheap cotton land
was the lure. From Virginia, the Caro-
linas and Georgia came planters, mer-
chants and artisans, the well-to-do
often in elegant carriages, barouches
or sulkies. Other thousands walked
all the way.
How They Went to Alabama.
It was like the later gold rush to
California. In one of the 1919 issues
of the Augusta Chronicle Is recorded
the fact that there passed through a
IMAM, his wife, a son and his wife,
with a cart but no horse. The man
had belt over his shoulders and drew
the cart The old woman was walk
ing, carrying a rifle and driving a
cow" Others had their goods packed
in q hogs-head, with trunnions put in
the ends and shafts attached" It is
recorded that some families rolled
their goods in this manner all the way
from Carolina TO Alabama. You can
talk still to older Alabama residents
who remember what their GRANDPA
theirs told of this historic migration,
when they came with 1t as young men.
MY grandfather brought his bees in
hives says q Birmingham lawyer. IF
they swarmed, the whole wagon train
turned out, drumming on pots and
pans to make the bees settle again.
He brought garden seeds and young
fruit trees. Even strand Of pussy
willow, worn as hatband, he planted
on the new land he chose-and it's
still growing there.
when my folks first settled they
had to ride mule, by compass, 100
miles TO the nearest blacksmith to get
pillow points sharpened If their fire
died out, they used TO borrow fire.
There being no matches, a boy on a
horse was sent to the nearest neigh
Dor, to come galloping home with
burning piece of pine fat"
Unique in Alabama annals was the
founding of Demopolis, on the Tom
bigbee Certain distinguished French
men. banished from Paris after Ma
poleon's sun had set. migrated here to
start vineyards and olive groves. They
were. says history, .'men who had
known Napoleon on intimate terms;
who had had conspicuous part in the
society, intrigue. and campaigns of the
French REVOLUTIONARY voted to exc
cute a French king-and ladies who
had figured in the voluptuous drawing
rooms of st. Cloud, and glittered in
the smiles and favors of Josephine
and Marie Antoinette."
Fortunes Made in Cotton.
Thus, through ante-belum decades,
sou saw Alabama grow up. Politics
dubbed. Towns, plantations, slaves
all multiplied Paths and mere tracks
on the ground turned to roads. Pala-
tial steamers, with romantic names,
and string bands. deck-hand quar-
tettes, and steam calfiopes to entertain
the passengers, came TO ply the rivers.
Cotton was king; sometimes it was 80
cents pound-and more. Real estate
companies abounded and the South
saw its first land boom Slumps fol-
lowed booms; but men talked always
of slaves and cotton-and more cotton.
Fortunes grew. From New York to
New Orleans-before 1S4o-the PONY
Express was running. With 200 boy