LAKE CHARLES ADAPTED TO MANUFACTORIES - CALCASIEU PARISH, LA Contributed by Margaret Rentrop Moore Source: Southwest Louisiana Biographical & Historical by William Henry Perrin; published 1891 page 153 - 155. ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ LAKE CHARLES ADAPTED TO MANUFACTORIES.-Lake Charles has the best of facilities for becoming a manufacturing town. It has one trunk line railroad, and will soon have another. These will cause local roads to be built to other points. Even now there is one contemplated from the Sulphur Mine to tap the Southern Pacific some dozen miles or so west of the mine. Lake Charles has already pretty good water transportation, and when Calcasieu Pass is improved and deepened as designed, it will have the advantages of both railroad and water transportation. These combined advantages must result in great benefit and wealth to the town if her people continue to exert themselves as they are now doing, and keep the ark moving." With her vast lumber interests, now aggregating millions of dollars annually, and to which should be added rice mills, sugar refineries, cotton gins and presses, oil mills and other factories that will necessarily follow, then will the hum of industry echo and reecho across your beautiful little lake. When you hear of a firm or company who are desirous of starting a manufacturing enterprise in your town, don't put your heads together and figure on how much you can squeeze out of them for a location for their establishment, but donate five, ten, or twenty acres if that will secure it. If a manufacturing enterprise is established in the town, employing a hundred hands, with a monthly pay roll of say $5000, who will be more benefited than the business men of Lake Charles? Why, the matter is so plain that "even a fool should not err therein." The editor of the American strikes the key note to the situation when he says: Facts and figures continue to show and prove what we have before repeated, that right in the South, in the midst of the cotton fields, is the place for successful cotton manufacturing. Experience has proven this beyond question. There is not a factory in the South, where it is properly managed, but what is paying a good per cent. on the investment. Ex-Governor Lowry, of Mississippi, makes the statement, that the product of Mississippi mills at Wesson is sold in Boston in competition with goods of all grades manufactured within forty miles of Boston. It must be remembered, too, that these mills are so situated that they have but one line of shipment and have no chance of competition in freights. This experience is in line with that of other mills in Georgia and Alabama. With such experience there is no wonder that factories in the North are hunting up good situations in the South where they can move their mills. When we read that a manufacturing establishment up North, employing, perhaps, one thousand hands, desires to move South, we conclude at once that the principal owners of the factory have investigated the matter, and the information obtained led to this conclusion. The time is now upon us when the cotton must be manufactured in or near the great cotton region, if done for profit. Already the foothold of Southern mills is so firm that the New England mills can not compete with them. The Southern mills have no long stretches of freight to meet; they have a climate which favors the work, making it a less cost for living and a less cost for manufacturing. This is shown in the per cent. of profits which is told annually to the world, and which reveals the fact that the Southern mills have largely the advantage over those of the North. The business men of manufacturing interests up North are alive to the times, and are trying to keep pace with the changes that are being made. He sees that he can now make favorable terms with some live young Southern city by getting a bonus to remove his mill, and he seizes the opportunity, recognizing the fact that the day may not be far distant when such opportunities will not come. The moving of mills South and the building of new ones and enlarging others has created a demand for this kind of machinery, and this will lead to the moving of iron mills South, as there will doubtless be advantages held by such mills because of their nearness to the cotton mills. There must be mills for the manufacturing of this machinery, right near the Southern cotton mills, where it is wanted. The advantage that one such mill will have over those far distant will be so great that other factories will follow or new ones be built. Just so with the great machine works that are manufacturing machinery for the saw- mills that have so largely increased in the South during the last few years. It is evident these machine shops must come nearer the mills. Time in this fast age has much to do with these matters, as well as the long haul of freights. We noticed the arrival in our city on the 17th of April of the machinery for the new ice factory in this city. This machinery was shipped on February 26 from New York, and shows the result of long distance. There is to-day not a more inviting field in the South for factories than in Lake Charles. The following timely hints are from the same source as quoted above, and are worthy of earnest consideration: We have mentioned the subject of a rice mill in a former issue, but we look upon it as so important that we again call attention to this subject. We believe there is no other city in the United States where a rice mill on a large scale, would pay as well as in the city of Lake Charles. In the first place it could be built cheaper here than in almost any other place. We have the finest building material in the world, cheaper than in almost any other place. We have the finest building material in the world, cheaper than in almost any other place. Our lumber is of the best and cheapest. Our brick will bear comparison with any brick on the continent, and can be furnished on the gronnd in any quantity as cheap as any place. The cost of operating a mill will be cheaper per than in most other places, by reason of the cheapness of fuel. Our saw-mill men will furnish fuel free to any factory or mill that will operate here. Then, in the next place, rough rice can be delivered here cheaper than in any other city where large rice mills are now in operation. It is estimated that Calcasieu parish will produce at least four hundred thousand barrels of rough rice this year, and the industry is but fairly begun. It can be delivered here for about eighty-five cents per barrel less than it can in New Orleans. Then the milled product can be shipped from here to the consumer as cheap or cheaper than from any other rice mills in the South. When the K. C., W. & G. Railway reaches Alexandria, which it will undoubtedly do this fall, rice can be shipped from here direct to St. Louis and nearly direct to Kansas City. Then, in the next place, the bran and the polish would find a ready market at the [nil] to the farmers and stock men. Taking all these things into consideration, it looks to us as if a rice mill on a large scale-say of the capacity of five hundred barrels per day-would pay enormous profits at once. Where is the man with capital who is willing to engage in this enterprise ? We feel sure that our citizens are ready to encourage this enterprise heartily, for it will be admitted by all that while a mill would be greatly profitable to its owners, it would at the same time be valuable to the city and the country. It would give us an increase of population and wealth. It would give us a market for our rough rice at home. It would give us cheap feed. It would add to our resources in many ways, and benefit us for all time to come. Let us have a rice mill.