death_place death_date birth_place parents birth_date spouse article_title name occupation
middlesboro , kentucky , usa 04 march 1912 glasgow , scotland alexander arthur and catherine allen 30 august 1846 mary forrest nellie goodwin alexander arthur
 alexander arthur business , engineering
alexander arthur

alexander alan arthur -lrb- august 30 , 1846 -- march 4 , 1912 -rrb- was a scottish-born engineer and entrepreneur active primarily in the southeastern united states in the latter half of the 19th century .
flamboyant , charismatic , and energetic , arthur used his prominent american and european financial connections to fund numerous business ventures , most of which were overly ambitious and ultimately failed .
a proponent of economic advancement in what became known as the new south , arthur played a primary role in the development of the cumberland gap area , and in the course of his endeavors established the cities of middlesboro , kentucky and harrogate , tennessee .
the community of arthur , tennessee , is named for him .
after spending his early life migrating back and forth between scotland , canada , and scandinavia , arthur moved to boston in 1879 , and accepted a position as the general manager of the scottish-carolina timber and land company 's american operations .
in the early 1880s , arthur identified a rich stand of timber in the upper blue ridge mountains along the tennessee-north carolina border , and devised a boom system to extract the timber from the difficult mountain terrain .
later in the same decade , arthur identified the abundant iron ore deposits in the cumberland gap region , and established a multimillion dollar iron production operation in hopes of making middlesboro the `` pittsburgh of the south . ''
while he never experienced great financial success , arthur 's endeavors were a harbinger of the great logging and mining operations that became major economic forces in southern appalachia in the early 20th century .
