Lenoir County, NC - Industrial Issue - 1906 File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Christine Grimes Thacker This Industrial Issue of the Kinston Free Press was published in 1906 although there was an earlier Industrial Issue published in 1899. The issue is composed of both text and numerous pictures of places and people. This will be a slow project so please be patient. The text is presented on the Lenoir County USGenWeb Archives and the pictures on Old Dobbers reached through the Lenoir County GenWeb site - http://www.rootsweb.com/~nclenoir/ We are grateful to the Free Press for permission to post anything of historical or genealogical in nature published prior to 1939. ENDORSED BY OUR PUBLIC MEN In response to our request Governor R. B. GLENN writes an informing letter relative to North Carolina and especially this Eastern Section. He writes as follows: Mr. Editor: Your letter requesting me to write an article for your big magazine edition, soon to be issued, especially giving my ideas of the future prospects of eastern North Carolina, has been received, and though very busy, it affords me great pleasure to comply with your request, for I feel deeply grateful to your good people for the many favors they have bestowed on me, and any aid I can render them, either in advertising their many resources, or in giving a true account of the great advantages their section offers to the investor or home-seeker, will be a mission of love most cheerfully and gladly performed. The great development now going on in our State is not confined to any one locality buy extends everywhere and is simply phenomenal. In 1860, North Carolina was the poorest State in the Union, while to-day its percentage of increase, agriculturally, industrially and educationally has surpassed every other State. The value of our lands has advanced fifty and in some places, one hundred percent. No other State has as many mills and we are third in number of spindles and looms. Next to the largest furniture town in the world is in North Carolina; we make about six hundred thousand bales of cotton and manufacture more than we make, and this year have surpassed all other States in the manufacture of plug tobacco. Our increased valuation of property from 1900, when it was $306,000,000, to 1905, when it amounted to $443,000,000 is 41 per cent, while the increase in Texas, the next largest, was only about 20 per cent. These few instances from among many other, just as a starting figures, only go to show how rapidly we are developing, and how our people by pluck and industry are adding to our wealth and prosperity. No where in the State has this progress been more marked than in Lenoir and the counties adjacent thereto, and in no section have the people adopted a more wide-awake policy than here, and as a result, in an incredibly short time, rural districts have been converted into villages, and villages into thriving manufacturing towns, where the hum of machinery and the clatter of loom spindles make music to the industrial ear. Here too, gardens and truck farmers have been reclaimed from marshes and barren fields, until in truth we gather rose where thistles once abounded, and fruit instead of briars. Nature has given this section every variety of soil, from the muck of the swamp, the stiff and clay land of the higher elevations, the sandy loam and alluvial soils, to the fertile rich lands of the rivers and creeks, producing every kind of crop, from peas to cotton, often the same farm yielding corn, wheat, peanuts, tobacco, cotton, melons, grapes, fruit and grasses. Along what is called the valley of the Neuse, and other streams, it is not unusual to find land that will yield from three to six hundred pounds of cotton to the acre, and from thirty to fifty bushels of corn. During the last few years along the railroads and streams traversing this fertile country, special attention has been given to trucking and the vast amount of cabbage, lettuce, potatoes, strawberries and all other early fruits and vegetables, show that the productive quality of the soil is equal, if not superior, to the far-famed trucking farms of Florida and Georgia. So immense has been the yield of these farms, that often during the early season it is almost impossible for the railroads to furnish cars sufficient to supply the demand needed for Northern markets. Not only has Eastern Carolina a soil suitable for all cereals, fruits and vegetables, but it is also rich in timber, such as white and yellow pine, cypress, gum and oak, and while already vast quantities have been cut and much needlessly wasted, still enough remains to furnish employment to thousands of laborers, in carrying on the work done in lumber, furniture and sash and blind factories. At one time, owing to bad water and malarial diseases prevalent in certain localities of the east, home-seekers rather dreaded casting their lot here, even though the inducements were great, but preferred to go elsewhere, though in a poorer section. All this, however, is now remedied by the establishment of water-works in the towns, and cisterns and a system of driven wells in the country, and by using nets and screens against the malarial mosquito, until to-day eastern Carolina is as healthy as any other portion of the State, in fact, the mortality being even less than in the West. The Atlantic & North Carolina Railroad from Goldsboro to Morehead, Washington, Plymouth and Norfolk, the Norfolk & Southern Railroad and the various steamboat lines on sounds and rivers, furnish ample facilities for transporting passengers and freights to and from every locality, and new lines now under construction will soon render this one of the best developed and most accessible parts of the entire State. The industrial development of the counties along the above named railroads, has kept pace with the progress in other lines, and to see the condition of things now, and then remember what it was only a few years ago, fills the mind with wonder and amazement. Cotton Factories, tobacco warehouses and factories, mills of every kind, fisheries, canning works for fruits and oysters; saw-mills, cold storage plants, turpentine stills and many other works-all attest the onward march of this thrifty section, and is but an earnest of what the future will most assuredly be. The people too are not only industrious, sober and alert to everything that makes for their up-building, but also are awake to the educational needs of the hour, and good schools, public and private are everywhere furnishing young men and women, too poor to seek college training, a sufficient education to fit them for all the duties and requirements of life. Kinston, the county seat of Lenoir, is one of the most progressive towns in North Carolina, and its growth has been simply marvelous. All can remember when it was only a little village on the railroad from Goldsboro to New Bern, that scarcely called for a second glance from the car window, but now it is rapidly growing into a city, with banks, warehouses, factories, two railroads, (and soon to have a third), paved streets, electric lights, water-works, fine business houses of every description, well conducted newspapers, splendid schools and churches, and an up-to-date, energetic population, bound to prosper and go forward, and soon to be a powerful factor in the industrial, political and religious life of the State. In conclusion let me say, that this fertile section of our State, offers unsurpassed facilities and opportunities to every class and condition of men, the man with capital seeking investment; the laborer wanting work; the home-seeker desiring peace and plenty; the truck and crop farmer, wanting rich, yet cheap lands; the sojourner for health or pleasure; the fisherman, lawyer, doctor, merchant, broker, preacher,--all will find here conditions and opportunities both agreeable and profitable. To you, Mr. Editor, your town and section owes a debt of gratitude, for a great deal of its enterprise and prosperity is due to your valuable paper, which in season and out of season, has never lost an opportunity of advertising its many advantages, and proclaiming your faith in its ultimate success and wealth. Trusting that this great eastern part of our State will take no backward step, but may go onward to still greater achievements, I am, with best wishes for all good people of your land, Sincerely yours, R. B. GLENN. __________________________________________________________________________ USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. The electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. 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