USA > Alabama > Memorial record of Alabama. A concise account of the state's political, military, professional and industrial progress, together with the personal memoirs of many of its people. Volume I > Part 38
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The appearance of the railroad materially affected the traffic on the rivers, though the railroad has never been able to entirely supplant its older rival in commerce. The opening of the Muscle Shoals canal and the building of a number of locks in the Coosa river above Wetumpka, give promise of a sort of revival of trade upon the waterways of Ala- bama. The fine prospects before Mobile, as a commercial seaport in par- ticular, encourage the people of this state to hope for a renewed activity in trade by steamboats and barges. . Niles' Register, on December 23, 1817, had to say of Mobile that its port was crowded with vessels, among them one from Liverpool. The house room of the town, it was added, had been insufficient to accommodate the great influx of strangers. This was nearly eighty years ago. The channel improvements made by the gen- eral government in the river at Mobile are just now bringing in the return hoped for and are placing Mobile where, in 1817, it looked as if she cer- tainly would be, in the rank of one of the great ports of the world. At this time Mobile harbor often has forty and fifty vessels of all classes, from the great ocean freight steamers to the smaller lumber schooners
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and coal barges that ply along the coast, and there is hardly any city .in the country with a more assured prosperous commercial future before it, than that place.
RAILROADS.
The first railroad built in Alabama was that from Decatur to Tuscum- bia, in the northern part of the state. The construction of this was begun in 1831, and it was completed in 1833, a distance of forty-four miles. This road was designed to overcome the obstruction to trade of the Muscle Shoals in the Tennessee river, and its promoters were looked upon as great public benefactors. The passage of the first train was greeted, all along the short line, by crowds who had gathered to witness the marvel of a railroad train in operation, and they cheered it as it passed. We must not think of the early railroad as equipped in any- thing like the manner they are to-day. The early railroad builders attached more importance to the track than the engine. So the citizens of Tuscumbia congratulated themselves, when they saw the cars on the railroad coming into their town almost every day, loaded with cotton, and one horse drawing forty bales, each weighing 450 or 500 pounds. So, also, the Western railway of Alabama, incorporated, January 15, 1834, as the Montgomery railroad company in the beginning, was oper- ated in this primitive way. The company owned an engine, but it was so frequently out of order that they had to use horses a great deal. The difference in speed could not have been very marked. In June, 1840, only twelve miles had been constructed, and nearly a year later, when thirty-three miles were opened to the public; this distance was traversed in between three and four hours, at a rate less than ten miles an hour. The small receipts of this road during that early period is shown by this: A newpaper contemporary boasted that the gross receipts for freight and transportation of passengers continued to increase steadily from $500 - for the month of June, when the road was first opened, up to $1,800 for the month of January. This road, while not the pioneer, was for many years the most important in the state, as it was designed to, and did ultimately, connect with one of the great Georgia lines, and thus placed central Alabama, and all places that could be reached by river from Montgomery, in direct trade relations with the Atlantic coast and the east. The young enterprise saw many years of sore trial and severe hardships. Mobile had subscribed $400,000, but did not pay one cent of the amount subscribed, fearful, perhaps, that their money would go to the upbuilding of another town at her own expense, and perhaps, too, because already they were looking to the construction of a line that should con- nect Mobile with the flourishing west. This plan took shape in 1848, when the Mobile & Ohio railroad company was chartered by the legisla- ture of Alabama. On January 1, 1852, thirty-three miles of this road had been built. These thirty-three miles, together with the forty-four of the Tuscumbia & Decatur and the eighty-eight of the Montgomery & West
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MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
Point railroad, now the Western railway, formed the total of railroad mileage in the state. Twenty years had seen very few changes, and the traveler and the merchant were still watching for the steamboat and straining ears to catch its whistle. There was another railroad projected about this time that became, in some sort, a key to the industrial devel- opment of Alabama. This was a road that should connect Gunter's land- ing, on the Tennessee river, with Montgomery or Selma. Many years before it had been a subject of continual public agitation how best to bring together the northern and southern parts of the state. There was an unnatural political union between the two, so long as nature main- tained so many and such difficult barriers to intercourse between the two sections. Politics was powerfully affected, and hardly a legislature met that did not pass some law or adopt some memorial, looking to the con- struction of a lasting roadway from north to central Alabama.
PLANK ROADS.
When plank roads came into vogue, they were hailed everywhere in the state as the one cheap and certain method by which the Tennessee valley and the Alabama bottoms should pour their wealth upon one another. Railroads were to be abandoned as unnecessarily expensive, and plank roads were to be at the basis of a new social and economic birth for the commonwealth. The plank roads proved a failure, and the public mind once more turned to the railway, and continued to speculate about a line that should, when built, establish genuine brotherhood between all parts of the state. When Reuben Chapman was nominated for governor, he was darkly suspected of being in favor of a line of railway that should connect north Alabama with Charleston and the seaboard there, rather than by seeking a line southward that should contribute to the unity so much desired.
TRIUMPH OF RAILROADS.
In the end, there were two railroads built that had the long-wished-for object in view. The Selma, Rome & Dalton railroad company was char- tered March 4, 1848. There was a vague idea concealed in the corpora- tion that after the road was built, as projected, it would be easy to cross into the Tennessee valley and reach Gunter's landing, then the goal of all the northward-building roads in Alabama. On February 17, 1854, the South & North Alabama railroad company was chartered, and for the first time a line was designed to run, straight as the crow flies, to the iron and coal reigons and thence to the valley of the Tennessee.
The immense riches that lay concealed in the mountains of north Alabama were not then just coming to be known. Sir Charles Lyell had many years before, when on a visit to this country, called attention to the large mineral resources of the Cahawba valley. The manufacture of iron had been begun on a small scale in Bibb county, according to DeBow's Review, as early as 1830 or 1831. In 1834, according to Toumey,
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Silliman's Journal mentioned the existence of coal in Alabama. In 1850, there were about 200 persons engaged in the coal trade in Bibb and Shelby counties, while a little later, 6,000 pounds of iron were made in Benton, now Calhoun county, and shipped in flat boats to Wetumpka and thence to Mobile.
In DeBow's Review for January, 1855, there is an article written with some heat and temper, showing the prevalent opinion in Alabama at that time upon the importance of building a line to connect the mineral reigon with other sections. Judge Phelan, the writer said, had shown, in his admirable speech before the railroad convention at Elyton, this isolation to be a continually prolific source of great political evils, and that a railroad connecting the two sections was needed to overcome the geo- graphical barriers that make us two people. As early as 1836, he pro- ceeded, a company was formed to this end, and twenty-six miles of road were actually graded, but the enterprise was buried by the revulsion in 1841. The project was not renewed until 1849. The south, he goes on, is now almost slavishly dependent on the north for the very necessaries of life. Steam-engines and coffee mills and knitting-needles, carpets, cloths, domestics, hats, hose, ready-made pants, shoes and shirt collars, ships, passenger cars, carriages, ploughs, buckets, ax helves, stoves, gridirons, pots, pokers, rat traps and sausage stuffers, and every other contemptible notion, are bought to the enormous profit of the commiser- ating Yankee, for the supply of our lamentable destitution.
THE RAILROAD SYSTEM OF THE STATE.
The granting of the franchise of the South & North Alabama railroad, in 1854, was but one of the many enterprises inaugurated about that time; in fact, the main outlines of the railroad system of the state were then defined. This will appear from the following list of the railroads of the state, with the date of their incorporation. For convenience these are arranged alphabetically.
STATISTICS, ETC.
The Alabama Great Southern railroad company, itself organized No- vember 30, 1877, is a consolidated corporation made up of the Alabama & Chattanooga railroad company, chartered October 6, 1868, the Northeast & Southwest Alabama railroad company, chartered December 12, 1853, and the Wills Valley railroad, incorporated February 3, 1852. The main line of this road extends in a northeasterly and southwesterly direction from Chattanooga, Tenn., through the state of Alabama to Meridian, Miss., a distance of 290 miles. The capital stock of the company is $11,210,350, and it has outstanding bonds to the amount of $5,170,743.51. The total cost of the construction and equipment of that portion of the road in this state was $42,251.22 per mile. Its operating expenses for the year ending June 30, 1892, were $1,361,811.60.
The Alabama Midland Railway company, running from Montgomery
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MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA
to Bainbridge, Ga., a distance of 175 miles, is one of the comparatively new roads in the state. It was organized October 24th, 1887. The con- struction of this line of road is largely due to the indomitable energy and perseverance of J. W. Woolfork. On its completion, it was pur- chased by H. B. Plant of New York, in the interest of the system of roads largely controlled by him. The total amount of stock issued in constructing this line was $4,225,000, and the mortgage bonds amount to $3,300,000. The total cost of its construction was $7,525,000. The "Mid- land," as it is commonly termed, has done a steadily increasing business, and with the prospect now before it, of gaining a foothold in west Ala- bama through the Montgomery, Tuscaloosa & Memphis railway, it must become one of the great trunk lines of the state.
The Alabama Mineral railroad company was organized on July 28, 1890, to operate the Anniston & Atlantic railroad from Ammiston to Sylacauga, and the Anniston & Cincinnati from Anniston to Attalla, in all eighty-six miles. On February 10, 1891, an extension from Syla- cauga to Calera, was constructed, making a line of 121 miles. Its capital stock is $2,000,000, and its bonded indebtedness $1,650,000. The road cost $20,055 per mile ..
The Birmingham & Atlantic railroad is a short line, begun Octo- ber 1, 1890, and running from Talladega to Pell city, a distance ยท of twenty-three miles. With small branches, the total line is thirty-three miles in length. The capital stock is $1,000,000, and its bonded indebted- ness $400,000. The road cost $1,420,088.82.
The Birmingham Mineral railroad company was organized in Febru- ary, 1884. With its main line from Oneonta, Blount county, to Blocton Junction, and its numerous branches through the coal fields, it measures nearly 162 miles. This road has contributed wonderfully to the develop- ment of the mineral resources of the region through which it penetrates. It is operated by the Louisville & Nashville railroad. The capital stock is $2,427,600; funded debt, $3,929,000, and it cost $6,357,538.12.
The Birmingham, Selma & New Orleans railway company, is a short, unimportant local line, organized in 1886, under a charter granted the New Orleans & Selma railroad, February 23, 1886. The line runs from Selma to Martin's Station, in Dallas county, a distance of twenty-one miles.
The Birmingham, Sheffield & Tennessee River railway company was rganized in October, 1888, it having purchased the Sheffield & Birming- ham railroad. With its branches to mines, it is 119 miles in length. The capital stock is $3,275,000, and it bears a mortgage debt of $2,975,.000.
The East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia railway company embraces within itself one of the oldest roads in Alabama, the Selma, Rome & Dalton, already referred to. It was formed by the consolidation of the East Ten- nessee & Virginia, and the East Tennessee & Georgia railroad companies, February 25, 1869. It acquired by purchase the Selma, Rome & Dalton,
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the Alabama Central railorad, the Cincinnati & Georgia railroad, and the Macon & Brunswick railroad. It also purchased, among other roads, the Selma & Mobile, the Rome & Decatur, and the Briarfield, Blocton & Bir- mingham. The total mileage operated is 1,265 miles, of which 406.72 miles are in Alabama.
The East & West railroad of Alabama, running from Cartersville, Ga., to Pell City, Ala., a distance of 117 miles, was organized February 20, 1882. It was originally known as the Cartersville & Van Wert railroad, then the Cherokee railroad, and then assumed its present name. The road is at this time in the hands of a receiver. Its debt is represented by way of mortgage bonds amounting to $1,750,000, and receiver's certifi- cates, for over one-half a million. The road cost $793,015.22.
The Georgia Pacific railway company was organized December 31, 1881. It is a consolidated company, operated by the Richmond & Dan- ville. It embraces the Elyton & Aberdeen, the Columbus, Fayette & Decatur and the Greenville, Columbus & Birmingham railroad companies. Its termini are Atlanta, Ga., and Greenville, Miss., and its total mileage is 590.80 miles, of which 254 miles are in Alabama. It is leased to the Richmond & Danville for twenty years from and after January 1, 1889. The stock issued and outstanding is $6,245,150. Its indebtedness is $13,355,783.51.
The Kansas City, Memphis & Birmingham railroad company was organized February 1, 1887, being consolidated with the Memphis & Bir- mingham and the South Eastern railroad companies. The Fine has been constructed from Memphis to Birmingham, a distance of 253 miles, and the company operates, with some minor branches, of which 107 miles are in Alabama, 276 miles. The total amount of stock issued and outstand- ing is $5,956,000. Its mortgage bonds amount to $6,892,000.
The Memphis & Charleston railroad company was organized February 2, 1846. It was originally chartered by the state of Tennessee, and by Alabama, January 7, 1850. The total mileage operated is 330 miles, of which 195 miles lie in Alabama. The capital stock is $5,312,725, and its funded indebtedness $5,524,000. This great road running from Memphis to Chattanooga has been a power in the development of the Tennessee valley.
The Mobile & Birmingham railway company is just one more illustra- tion of how all new roads in Alabama are apt to lead toward Birming- ham, the pushing, thriving center of the new industrial life of the state. This road was incorporated February 17, 1885, as the Mobile & West Alabama railroad company. In 1886, its name was changed to what it now bears. It purchased the property and franchises of the Mobile & Ala- bama Grand Trunk railroad company (1865). This last company was incorporated February 23, 1866. This road extends from Mobile to Bir- mingham via Selma, a distance of 164 miles. The capital stock author- ized is $6,000,000; issued $3,000,000. Its indebtedness amounts in mortgage bonds to $4,100,000. The road cost $7,669,299.70.
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MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
The Mobile & Girard railroad received its charter in 1846, but its organization was not perfected until 1849. The road extends from Colum- bus, Ga., to Troy. Ala .. a distance of eighty-four miles, and thirty-seven miles beyond. Its capital stock is $1,269,707, and the indebtedness $1,080,000.
The Mobile & Montgomery railway company was oragnized November 23, 1874. It was formed by a consolidation of the Alabama & Florida railroad company, chartered February 11, 1850, and the Mobile & Great Northern railroad company. chartered February 15, 1856. The line ex- tends from Montgomery to Mobile, a distance of 178 miles. The capital stock is $3.022.517.71. owned by the Louisville & Nashville railroad com- pany. Its bonded indebtedness is $2,948,000. It cost $21.910 per mile.
The Mobile & Ohio railroad company was organized June 7, 1848, under the laws of Alabama. The main line extends from Mobile to East Cairo, Ky., a distance of 493 miles. The total number of miles operated is 687, of which only eighty-two miles lie in this state. The capital stock issued amounts to $5,320,600. The bonded indebtedness is $17,461,165. The Mobile & Ohio is now involved in some far-reaching litigation, the main features of which are to be determined in the near future, and its operation and the extension of its field are supposed to depend directly upon the decision of the courts upon the litigated points ..
The Montgomery & Eufaula railway was organized January 13, 1860, under the laws of Alabama. The war interfered with the construction of the road, and it was not completed until several years after the cessation of hostilities. The original company was bankrupted, and the road was sold at auction in May, 1879, when it was purchased by the Georgia Cen- tral railroad company. It passed into the hands of the Richmond & Danville, together with the larger property of which it formed a part, but is now operated by a receiver. The roads extends from Montgomery to Eufaula, a distance of eighty miles. The capital stock is $620,000; the indebtedness $1,500,000. When sold at auction it brought $1,200,000.
. The Nashville, Chattanooga & St Louis railway was organized, Janu- ary 24, 1848, under the title of the Nashville & Chattanooga railroad com- pany. This concern acquired the property of the Nashville & North- western railroad company, and in 1873, the name was changed to what it now is. The road consists of 790 miles, of which only sixty-nine are in Alabama.
The Nashville & Decatur railroad, a part of the great Louisville & Nashville system, was organized January 1, 1867. It was the product of a consolidation with the Tennessee & Alabama (1852), Central Southern (1853), and Tennessee & Alabama (1853) railroad companies. The road extends from Nashville to Decatur, Ala., a distance of 119 miles, twenty - six miles of which are in Alabama.
The Nashville, Florence & Sheffield railway company was organized, May 16, 1867, a consolidation of the Nashville & Florence and the Ten-
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nessee & Alabama railroad companies. It extends from Columbia, Tenn., to Sheffield, Ala., a distance of ninety-four miles, twenty of which are in Alabama.
The New Orleans, Mobile & Texas railroad company was organized November 24, 1866, and extends from Mobile to New Orleans, a distance of 140 miles, twenty-eight miles of which are in Alabama. It is operated by the Louisville & Nashville railroad, and forms the last link connect- ing that great system with the metropolis of the southwest.
The Pensacola & Selma railroad, organized January 30, 1858, extends from Selma to Pine Apple, in Wilcox county, a distance of thirty-six miles. This is a small branch road, purchased and operated by the Louisville & Nashville railroad, with the transparent purpose of prevent- ing its completion to a point where it would compete with their trunk line, running by way of Montgomery and Mobile. There is a lower division of the road running from Flomaton to Repton, a distance of twenty-nine miles. The general assembly of Alabama, session 1892-93, passed an act looking to compelling the completion of the road from Pine Apple to Repton.
The Savannah & Western railway company was organized July 30, 1888, the successor to a number of roads that had been operated for short distances in the eastern section of Alabama. It extends from Columbus, Ga., to Birmingham, 157 miles, from Opelika to Roanoke, thirty-seven miles, and from Eufaula to Ozark, sixty miles, in all, 254 miles. The outstanding capital stock is $1,920,400; its bonded indebtedness, $4,739,200.
The South & North Alabama railroad company was chartered, as we have seen, February 17, 1854. It was organized March 27, 1858. It ex- tends from Decatur to Montgomery, 182 miles, and has a short branch from Elmore to Wetumpka, in all 189 miles. The outstanding capital stock is $3,481,000, and its bonded indebtedness $9,858,920. The road cost $11,463,086.18, or at the rate of $60,757.93 per mile.
The Tuskegee railroad company is a narrow gauge extending from Chehaw on the Western railway, a distance of five and a half miles, to Tuskegee. The road cost $9,726.84 per mile.
The Western railway of Alabama was organized March 15, 1883. The original Montgomery railroad company was chartered January 15, 1834- the second road to be chartered in the state. It extends from West Point, Ga., via Montgomery to Selma, 132 miles. The capital stock of the company is $3,000,000; its bonded indebtedness, $1,543,000.
The Savannah, Americus & Montgomery railway company, chartered in 1891, and extending from Americus, Ga., to Montgomery, eighty-one miles of which distance are in Alabama, is one of the last roads of any length to be constructed in Alabama. It has proved an unfortunate venture, financially, thus far, but seems to carry assurance of a pros- perous career ultimately.
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MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
The official returns show that there are, including sidings, 4,060 miles of railroad in Alabama; 3,583.33 miles were on the main lines. Accord- ing to the aduitor's report for 1892, the assessed valuation of the railroad lines in the state was $40,480,972.41; and, in including side tracks and rolling stock, this valuation amounted to $47,883,749.87.
More than commonly kind relations exist between the railroads and the people in Alabama. A railroad commission of limited powers, estab- lished in 1881, has tended further to harmonize these relations.
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FINANCES AND BANKING.
CHAPTER VI. FINANCE AND BANKING.
BY THOMAS H. CLARK, MONTGOMERY.
FINANCIAL HISTORY OF ALABAMA - BANKING AND CURRENCY SYSTEM - THE STATE BANK - ITS CAPITAL STOCK - ITS MANAGEMENT - ITS BRANCHES - SCHEMES OF OFFICE SEEKERS - THE CRISIS - THE WRECK - PLOTS TO DEFRAUD - LIQUIDATION - WAR APPROPRIATIONS - REPUDIATION - RECONSTRUCTION PERIOD - SETTLEMENT OF STATE . DEBT.
ET is well, in discussing a topic of this magintude, to define our terms at the outset. The financial history of Alabama might, without any great impropriety, be made to include an account of all the economic conditions of the state, since its foundation, in which the money problem has been an element. We might, in this view, have to enter upon the narrative of the early settle- ment of the territory, tell of the train of emigrant wagons and how the owners of these, once located, proceeded to exchange their means of transportation for the means of subsistence; how oftentimes, amid the hardships of pioneer life, food products mounted to excessive rates, corn costing five dollars per bushel and flour twenty dollars per barrel; how in Mobile, during the winter of 1813, bread was forbidden to be sold on account of its scarcity, and a visitor had to secrete under his clothes bread he had surreptitiously purchased. Such an inquiry, too, would include an account of the wild spirit of land speculation that swept down upon and involved the early settlers in this state, when $3,000,000 worth of public lands were sold at one time in Huntsville, when 284 lots in the town of Florence brought $226,411 and one lot brought $3,500, when 101 lots in Cahaba brought $96,000 and one lot brought $5,025, when bottom lands were sold at from $40 to $50 per acre, and in some instances, as in the case of the big bend opposite the present city of Montgomery, at $70 per acre. The chronicler would then have to proceed with his narrative and tell how these ridiculously speculative prices brought failure and distress in their train, how cries went up for relief, how public meetings were held, petitions formulated and political fortunes made and unmade as the. aspirants for office declared themselves for or against relief legis-
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MEMORIAL RECORD OF ALABAMA.
lation, looking to an extension of the time within which land purchased from the government might be paid for. A more popular and perhaps a more logical definition of our topic would restrict its scope to the treat- ment of the means adopted to provide a circulating medium for the people of the state, and it is this view of historical Alabama it is designed here to present.
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