Colbert-Madison County AlArchives News.....A New Alabama City November 21, 1883 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/al/alfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Kenneth Stacy klstacyfamily@aol.com January 22, 2008, 8:27 pm The Huntsville Weekly Democrat November 21, 1883 A New Alabama City ------------------ The Atlanta Constitution gives us the first information we have received of a new city to spring up on a high bluff on the South side of the Tennessee, between Florence and Tuscumbia and below Muscle Shoals. The Constitution says it got its information from Col. Adair, of Atlanta, who says that, some time ago he saw it published that Maj. E. C. and Capt. W. S. Gordon had procured a large number of acres of mountain land south of Tuscumbia and proposed to run a narrow gauge railroad from the M. & C. R. R. south to the Franklin county line. Recently, he met Capt. Walter S. Gordon who said his company had bought 3500 acres of land on the South bank of Tennessee river (as above indicated) and invited him (Col. Adair) to visit the site of the proposed city and the iron and coal mines in Franklin county, on the line of the proposed railroad, to form a correct idea of the advantages. Col. Adair accepted the invitation; and, below we copy from the Constitution his report of his visit: On Friday morning, in company with Messrs. D. M. Bain and C. A. Collier, we reached Tuscumbia, and drove out to the lands intended to be the new city. Just at the foot of Muscle Shoals, where the Tennessee river curves to the southwest, I found a beautiful plateau of land 100 feet above high water mark, with four miles fronting on the river and commanding a magnificent view of distant mountains, valleys and navigable water. The ground was just undulating enough to drain itself thoroughly with beautiful elevations for building sites; a portion of it in native forest groves, the balance in cleared land that brings three-fourths of a bale of cotton to the acre.—Within four miles frontage on the river there are three depressions, giving free access to the water for landings and wharf purposes. Several bold springs, above high water mark run from the land into the river. Near the centre of the site there is an elevated ground upon which a reservoir can be placed at trifling expense, that will carry water by gravity, into a three story building on any other part of the ground. The reservoir can be supplied from the celebrated Tuscumbia Spring, but a short distance from the spot. From Tuscumbia there is now running a daily train through the site of the new city to Florence. This is a branch of the Memphis and Charleston railroad. The Indiana, Alabama and Texas railroad company will begin the construction of their line form the site of the new city south to the coal and iron fields, immediately. This line will tap the Georgia Pacific railroad between Columbus and Birmingham, and will get connections eastward to Birmingham, and westward to Columbus, and reaching Mobile and South Mississippi by the Alabama Great Southern railroad. The Louisville and Nashville railroad are building from Columbia, Tenn., in the direction of the new city, and that line is all under contract except sixteen miles. So much for the roads already constructed and soon to be completed, making “Iron City” an accessible point by rail to every part of the Union, with water navigation as certain and ample as the Mississippi itself. The road running south at a point eighteen miles south of Tuscumbia at the foot of a mountain of iron six miles long, two miles wide, that has in its bowels enough iron to supply the world for a hundred of centuries, and at a point six miles further south it taps the Warrior coal fields that extend 150 miles east through to Birmingham. It is no exaggeration to any that this short road will open to the world transportation to furnish iron and coal to the human family for the next thousand years, and the quality of it you can see on my table; for I knocked these samples off of rocks as big as a house, with my own hands. To appreciate its magnitude you must go and see it. An old furnace was run on these ores many years ago and the pig hauled for twenty miles on wagons. The iron produced from the ore, was said to be the best made in the country and always commanded a premium for making boiler plate, etc. “Colonel, what do you think of the Iron City becoming a place of prominence?” I think it is destined to be a large interior city. First it is the handsomest site for a city I ever saw on a navigable stream. It is at the south end of Tennessee valley, one of the most fertile and productive spots in the Union. Its superb drainage precludes all danger from malaria.—Chills and fevers are unknown there. It has an inexhaustible supply of pure drinking water. It has great water powers. It is at the head of deep water navigation on the Tennessee river, that gives it direct communication with every stream that reaches the Gulf of Mexico. By the Memphis and Charleston railroad it reaches Chattanooga with its northern and eastern connection, Memphis and its western connections, and all the other roads running to the gulf, Mobile, new Orleans, etc., and with the road south of Tuscumbia now in course of construction, gives those immense beds of iron and coal immediate rail and water transportation to all points of the United States. You will bear in mind that Iron City is at the extreme southern bend of the Tennessee river, and this easy water navigation will be a formidable competitor with all through lines from the great northwest seeking to distribute its enormous products in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. With all these advantages, and the further fact that it is one of the most productive parts of the Union, and the certainty of the development of the minerals in its immediate vicinity, it gives promise for a most flourishing city. “Col., what advantages has Iron City over other iron localities of the South as an iron manufacturing center?” Well, in the first place, the city will be built on limestone bluffs. The great iron and coal fields are at its back. Iron can be made there as cheaply as at any place in the world, and, after it is made, the freight on the pig iron will be $2.00 per ton less to the iron markets than from other localities on account of the water transportation. As a coal shipping point it would be unsurpassed, as it is 700 miles nearer St. Louis and New Orleans that Pittsburgh is by water. It is the natural place for the western grain fields to empty their treasures, and, taken all in all, I never saw a place as eligibly located and with such prospects for being a large city. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/al/colbert/newspapers/anewalab1567gnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/alfiles/ File size: 7.1 Kb