USA > Arkansas > Sebastian County > Fort Smith > Fort Smith, Ark. Its history. Its commerce. Its location. Itself > Part 1
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¥c 976.702 777f 1628916
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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01712 9450
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/fortsmitharkitsh00fort 0
Fort Smith, Ark.
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·
What it is.
What it has.
What it offers.
It. Smith- Chamber of a Commerce
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FORT SMITH,
ARK,
Its History.
Its Commerce.
Its Location,
Itself.
1628916
THIS PAMPHLET,
REPARED by the CHAMBER OF COM- MERCE, an organization in no manner connected with speculation nor speculators, is believed to be in all its statements correct and truthful. The FACTS concerning FT. SMITH make an argument that needs no embellish- ment. The
CLOSEST INVESTIGATION
By Manufacturers, Business Men, Capitalists and Good Citizens is Courted, and specific infor- mation will be cheerfully furnished by the
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE,
FORT SMITH, ARK.
FORT + SMITH, + ARK.J. - -
HISTORICAL.
N 1817 the Government established a military post at the confluence of the Arkansas and Poteau Rivers, and called it Fort Smith. The border merchant, attracted by the profitable traffic with the Indians and the safety afforded by his country's flag, soon settled around the fort, and the embryo American city was started.
MILITARY.
The Seventh Regiment of Infantry remained at this place until 1825, by which time the small civil settlement had grown slightly in the number and considerably in the quality of its inhabitants, and the post was considered a pleasant one both in army and lay circles. In this year one John Rogers purchased several hundred acres of land from the Government, and found the first profitable real estate investment of the locality, for in 1836 the Government found it must have a reservation about its fort, and bought back a part of the land at an increased price, and Rogers laid out the remainder in a town-site, from which all newcomers had to secure lots. The town was christened "Belle Point " by its proprietor, who was doubtless led in his selection of the name by an artistic appreciation of the beauty of the location ; but, though appropriate, that name was not adopted by the practical citizens who grappled more successfully with the equally eupho- nious if not so artistic name of Smith, or Fort Smith, and the baptismal name would now be quite forgotten were it not applied to one of the handsome school edifices which adorn the town.
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Fort Smith, Ark.
TRADING POST.
Fort Smith struggled along as a frontier trading-post for many years, gaining importance during the Mexican War when many of the troops and Government supplies were sent to the front by this route, being brought up the Arkansas River by boat to Fort Smith. In 1871 the garrison was removed further west to Fort Gibson, but Fort Smith, the town, was then firmly estab- lished, and with overland stage routes to the far west, large steamboats plying regularly between Cincinnati, St. Louis, New Orleans and Fort Smith, she continued to grow slowly, until in 1880 the census reports show her to have had 3,000 population.
FIRST RAILROADS.
The Little Rock & Fort Smith Railway was the first railroad connection, being completed to Fort Smith in 1876. It was fol- lowed soon after by the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway, which gave a decided impetus to Fort Smith trade, and from 1880 to 1884 her population was more than doubled. Meanwhile, the Government having removed its fort and having no further use for the reservation, purchased from John Rogers (except that small portion upon which the Federal Court having jurisdiction over the Indian Territory was located, and the jail in which the prisoners were confined), donated this 360 acres of land to the city of Fort Smith for public school purposes. The value of this gift may be appreciated when it is stated that less than half of the land has been sold for over $350,000, and is fairly well covered with hand- some residences, public buildings and large factories. This is mentioned as one of the causes leading to the large influx of popu- lation which has occurred since 1884, giving Fort Smith in 1891 about 15,000 souls. Other causes which have contributed to the same and have been the building of railroads to Paris, Tex., Coffeyville, Kan., Greenwood, Ark., and Mansfield, Ark. ; the opening of the mammoth semi-anthracite coal fields of which Fort Smith is the center ; the partial development of a few of the many lines of profitable manufacturing that Fort Smith has peculiar advantages for, and the constantly increasing agricultural popula- tion in Western Arkansas and the Indian Territory, which is almost exclusively tributary to the wholesale trade of Fort Smith.
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Fort Smith, Ark.
COMMERCIAL.
The five important factors in the growth and development of an inland city are: 1. Its situation with reference to an agri- cultural country. 2. The absence of rival distributing points.
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3. Transportation facilities. 4. Manufacturing advantages.
5. Desirability as a place of residence.
AGRICULTURAL SURROUNDINGS.
Fort Smith's tributary agricultural country consists of West- ern Arkansas and the Indian Territory. Western Arkansas land is of two kinds, the valley and river bottoms being one kind, and the bill and mountain lands the other. The former are almost entirely alluvial and are very fertile, producing cotton and corn abundantly. The latter produces wheat, oats, hay, potatoes and fruits and berries in good quantity. The quality of these products can be judged from the fact that the premium wheat at the New Orlean's Exposition came from an Arkansas upland farm, fifty miles from Fort Smith, and Arkansas apples have carried off first prizes in all contests of the past five years from Boston to Califor- nia. The Indian Territory farm lands are generally prairie and river valleys and yield cotton and the cereals equally well. The acreage in cultivation in the Territory is increasing marvelously each year and is adding steadily to Fort Smith's distributive area.
SUPERIOR LOCATION.
Fort Smith is particularly fortunate in the absence of rival distributing points. Situated on the western boundary line of the State, where the Arkansas river breaks through the Boston mountains, she occupies the only spot topographically available for a large city and easily accessible by railroads along that entire border. To the West lies the Indian Territory, a stretch of coun- try nearly 400 miles square, and admittedly one of the most fer- tile sections of the Union, with Guthrie as the chief town, a place of 5,000 people, two hundred miles distant. On the North no town of over 3,500 people for one hundred and seventy-five miles,
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Fort Smith, Ark.
Springfield, Mo., being the nearest wholesaling point, and Kansas City, which is three hundred miles away, the nearest large city. On the East, no town of over 2,000 people exists for one hundred and sixty five miles, Little Rock being the nearest wholesaling point in that direction, and Memphis, which is some three hundred miles from Fort Smith, the nearest city of important size; and on the South, one hundred and seventy-five miles away, is Texarkana, the only town of commensurate size, with Dallas as the closest · large city.
Leaving aside consideration of the tributary Indian Country, which opened to settlement, would of course by itself build its supply point into a large city, and leaving aside all account of its superior manufacturing advantages, which are of equal importance, will not Fort Smith increase in her size and commerce proportion- ately with the growth of the surrounding portions of Arkansas, now sparsely settled but inviting and beginning to receive the great influx of population from the colder and less fertile Northern States? And if so, what will her future be when the Indian Ter- ritory becomes a State, and her manifold manufacturing advan- tages have been availed of? The answers to these questions are left to the consideration of those to whom this pamphlet is addressed.
RIVER TRANSPORTATION.
In the very important matter of transportation facilities, Fort Smith is not lacking and the prospects are she would be embarrassed with them in the not distant future if such a thing were possible. The Arkansas river, on which she is located, is navigable for small boats all through the year, and for large steamers from the Mississippi for a part of the year. Before the advent of the railroads regular packet lines plied between Fort Smith and Mississippi river points. The river business is now confined to local trade, which has so increased lately as to furnish a paying business to three boats owned by the merchants. The river transportation gives the city a considerable advantage in the matter of keeping railroad freights on heavy goods reasonable, Fort Smith, as a river town, being used as a basing point.
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Fort Smith, Ark.
COMPLETED RAILROADS.
Fort Smith's completed railroads are the Little Rock & Fort Smith, Kansas & Arkansas Valley, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe to St. Louis, Mo. ; same system to Paris, Texas and the Fort Smith & Mansfield. By these connection is made at Little Rock with Memphis, Tenn. and with Arkansas City, Ark., both on the Mississippi river. Also, via the Iron Mountain road with St. Louis, Mo. and Texarkana, Texas ; by the Kansas & Arkansas Valley road via Coffeeville, Kan., with Kansas City, Mo. and the whole Kansas system of railroads ; by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe with the system of roads centering at St. Louis and via Nichols' Junction with Kansas City ; by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe at Paris, Texas, with the Texas system of roads ; at Wistar Junction, thirty-five miles south of Fort Smith, with the Choctaw Coal & Railway, now completed sixty-five miles west and being built west to Oklahoma. The two last mentioned roads bring the immense gas and coking, coal fields of the Indian Territory within easy reach of Fort Smith, the distance to the nearest mines being only twenty-eight miles. The Fort Smith & Mansfield road runs through the immense coal fields in the Hunt- ington and Hartford basins in Sebastian county. The roads par- tially built and under construction are the Fort Smith & Southern, which within a few months will be completed via Nashville, Ark., to Hope, on the Iron Mountain road, from whence a road is about completed to Eldorado, Ark., and is being pushed on to Alexandria, La., on the New Orleans & Pacific road ; the Texarkana & North- ern is completed to Red river, the river bridged and fifty miles northward under contract and building. This will tap the Fort Smith & Southern at Center Point, in Arkansas, These roads will be completed within eighteen months and open up to Fort Smith a direct connection with New Orleans and Galveston and at no dis- tant day Sabine Pass, furnishing a market for its coal and man- ufactured articles, as well as pouring into its lap the resources of a wider scope of country even than it now has. The Kansas City, Fort Smith & Southern is now completed to Sulphur Springs, Ark. and pushing rapidly south to Fort Smith. This road, will place Fort Smith within ten hours' travel of Kansas City and open up an immense traffic in fruits, berries and early vegetables, for the cul- tivation of which the country around Fort Smith is so well adapted, as well as creating a further demand for coal. The Fort
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Fort Smith, Ark.
Smith, Paris & Dardanelle road has five miles built and the right- of-way secured over nearly the whole eighty miles. This will add a large and valuable section to Fort Smith enterprise.
PROSPECTIVE RAILROADS.
These roads place Fort Smith within easy reach of some of . the finest timber and mineral regions on the continent and makes the city one of the best points for a rapid growth into a large and prosperous wholesaling and manufacturing city. The contemplated roads which have either been surveyed or located or are now being. located, are a road south of the Arkansas river to Little Rock and a road branching from the Kansas & Arkansas Valley road at Illinois Station, thence west across the Indian Territory to near Oklahoma, where it will again branch, running west through Guthrie and Oklahoma City. A few moments spent in examining the map and tracing the roads referred to will convince the most sceptical that Fort Smith's future is already assured, so far as railroads running through the finest of agricultural, mineral and timber regions and centering here, can assure it.
THE BRIDGE.
For years Fort Smith has been handicapped by the want of a bridge across the Arkansas river at this point. Such a bridge, among the largest and best in the country, has been completed for railroads, wagon and foot passengers. The very fact that such a man as Jay Gould has invested half a million dollars in a bridge to cross the Arkansas river to a city now having only¿15,000 inhabitants, less than ten per cent. being colored, when there is already one crossing the river four miles from Fort Smith, should go far to convince those looking out for a desirable location for general business and manufacturing, that they need look no further than to this point. With the completion of this bridge will come the division headquarters and machine shops of both the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe and the Missouri Pacific systems, provision for which events are already made.
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Fort Smith, Ark.
MANUFACTURING ADVANTAGES.
The manufacturing advantages of Fort Smith are unexcelled by any point in the country. It has cheap fuel. Water that will not injure the boilers. It has competing systems of railroads in every direction. It has timber in endless variety and almost without limit immediately at its door. The country is rapidly developing and filling up, while there are but comparatively few . to take advantage of the splendid openings. The manufacturing that is done here has grown up among our own citizens and almost exclusively on home capital. Among the manufactories here are :
One of the largest Cotton Compress and Cotton-Seed Oil Mills in the country.
Three Furniture Factories.
Three Planing Mills.
One large Roller Flour Mill.
One Harness and Saddle Manufactory.
Two Foundries and Machine Shops.
One Boot and Shoe Factory.
One Broom Factory.
One large Canning Works.
One Wood Package Factory.
Two large Paving Brick Plants.
Three Cigar Factories.
One Ice Factory.
One Candy Manufactory.
Besides these, a large number of smaller concerns, many of which lack nothing but capital to develop into enterprises of great magnitude and profit. Every factory in Fort Smith is running to the extent of its capacity and nearly all of those engaged in man- ufacturing would welcome others in the same lines.
MATERIALS FOR MANUFACTURING.
Many of the raw materials which abound in the country sur- rounding Fort Smith are as yet entirely undeveloped, owing in some cases to remoteness from transportation and in more cases to lack of time, knowledge and capital on the part of our present
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Fort Smith, Ark.
citizens to investigate them. With the increased railroad facili- ties of the lines now building, the first of these causes will be largely removed and the opportunity is open to the reader of this pamphlet to benefit himself in the removal of the second. Prom- inent among the materials awaiting development are the iron ores known to exist in quantity in the vicinity of Fort Smith. One of these deposits in Crawford county, immediately 'north of Fort Smith and along the railroad, shows every indication of being extensive and samples tested by reliable chemists of St. Louis, Philadelphia and Birmingham, are shown to contain from forty- i two to fifty-six per cent. metallic iron and are pronounced first- class for making basic steel, or steel by the Henderson process. Other deposits in Scott and Logan counties, within forty-five miles of Fort Smith, are known but have been neither tested nor pros- pected, so far as the writer knows. The finest soft manganese (pyrolusite) is found in the county south of Fort Smith and fifty miles beyond perhaps the largest deposit of antimony (stibnite) in the United States is located. The lead and zinc ores in the northern part of the State are now being for the first time devel- oped and in that section and southwest Missouri the mining is already extensive. These ores are mostly being shipped to LaSalle, Ill., for treatment, although Fort Smith, with its cheap and unsurpassed fuel and close proximity affords good opportu- nity for the location of reduction works to handle them. Gypsum, marls, chalks and marble, exist in the country tributary to Fort Smith, but have never been developed. The above are some of the raw materials as yet new and untried. There are many whose present supply is unlimited and which can be very profitably man- ufactured at this time in Fort Smith, among them are the numerous clays found in the vicinity of Fort Smith, only one or two varieties of which have as yet been utilized. The shale-clay, known to geol- ogists as the Akron shale, which makes the best of sewer-pipe and paving brick, is found in unlimited quantities. From this the brick were made to pave Garrison avenue in this city, and a number of streets in other western cities are now being paved with brick made of clay from the vicinity of Fort Smith. Few realize the value of these clays. Two large plants are now running to their fullest capacity in the manufacture of paving brick alone, and a third one is now being put in and they have orders enough ahead to keep them at work for a year. The demand for a good paving-brick is so great and the material from which it can be made is found in
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Fort Smith, Ark.
so few places that this industry alone will, from the present out- look, employ one thousand men at Fort Smith in a very few years. The analysis of the shale used for this purpose, as given by Prof. Branner, State Geologist, is as follows :
Silica.
58.43 per ct.
Alumina
22.50 . «
Oxide of Iron
8.36
Magnesia
1.14 66
Potash
2.18
· Soda.
1.03
Sulphur
0.16
Loss on ignition
6.87 66
100.99
Brick made from this clay and tested at the School of Mines, Columbia College, New York City, stood a crushing stress of 170 tons, or more than 5,500 pounds to the cubic inch, very nearly as much as the hardest of granite will stand.
In the geological survey made of Arkansas prior to 1860, by Prof. Owen, these deposits of shale were discovered and com- mented upon in the report. Owen says in his work that Arkansas is the first State in the Union in valuable shales, and the best of the deposits are within sixteen miles of Fort Smith. Fire clay and potters' clay are also found, but their location and usefulness have not been so practically demonstrated as the paving brick and sewer pipe clays. This is, the field for the enterprising brick and sewer-pipe maker. Fuel can be had at the minimum price and the material for making the product is abundant. The brick will bear transportation without loss and are now wanted by the cities of Galveston, New Orleans and Memphis in large quantities.
Besides the clays there are many other abundant materials now to be worked at this point. No place offers better openings for a cotton factory, wagon factory, stove and hollow-ware foun- dries, woollen factory, chair factory, furniture factories, tannery, agricultural tools and woodenware, machinery works and many other lines. The citizens have always been ready to offer reason- able inducements to those who in good faith make business prop- ositions, and are now ready to do so. The matter of fuel is treated fully under the heading of coal, to which the reader is referred.
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Fort Smith, Ark. PLACE OF RESIDENCE.
The last of the factors set forth as necessary to the growth of an inland city is its desirability as a place of residence. This factor depends in turn on many others, as health, climate, laws, schools, morality, society, public conveniences and business advantages. All of these items can best be judged of by personal visit. Fort Smith claims them all in their best degree, and invites your careful investigation of her claims. They are variously treated of in the following general division of this pamphlet.
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HFORT @ SMITH,O ARKE 1
DESCRIPTIVE.
This city is situated on the high bank of the Arkansas and Poteau rivers, the lowest part of it being at least 20 feet above the highest water mark, the greater part of it from 50 to 75 feet above. The surface of the ground is such as to furnish excellent natural drainage in every part of it. The corporate line on the the west is the line between the State of Arkansas and the Indian Territory. There is no town of 3,500 inhabitants within one hun- dred and sixty-five miles of it. The nearest large city north is Kansas City, Mo. ; east, is Memphis, and south, Dallas, Texas. Its topographical and geographical situation is all that could be asked to insure its growth almost independent of other surroundings. In 1880 it had a population of 3,000, which, in 1885, had increased to 6,000, and in 1891 to 15,000, of which but about 1,200 are negroes and the percentage of colored inhabitants is steadily decreasing. But it is not dependent on its situation alone, which is equal if not superior to Kansas City, Mo., or any western city of that class. It is the center of a fine agricultural and horticul- tural section of country, in which the length of season is such that with intelligent farming, total crop failures, which so often occur in other sections, are virtually impossible. It is also the entry to the vast coal fields of Sebastian and Scott counties in Arkansas and the Indian Territory, coal mining being carried on ranging from ten to fifty miles from the city. It is also the gate- way to one of the finest mineral regions immediately south of it, where antimony, manganese, fire clay, gypsum and chalk are · known to abound, and there is good reason to believe that lead, zinc and iron will be developed in paying quantities, and it is also surrounded with immense forests of valuable timber in almost limitless variety.
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Fort Smith, Ark.
HEALTH.
The following is quoted from a recent report on this subject by the Secretary of the Fort Smith Board of Health, a prominent physician of many years' practice in the city: "There are no diseases especially peculiar to this city or vicinity. Typhoid fever of the kind usual in more northern latitudes is almost unknown. We have never had an epidemic of diphtheria nor scar- let fever, nor has yellow fever ever made its appearance here, this city being out of its zone. This climate is peculiarly favorable to chronic pulmonary diseases, the mountains to the north and west modifying the severe cold and sudden changes of winter, and the period being long in which the people can live in the open air. The mortality rate from all causes for the year 1890, was 18 per 1,000 of population. This was to some extent increased by the prevalence of la grippe ( which we are fortunately almost entirely free from this year), and further kept somewhat above the normal by the presence of a large number of witnesses in the criminal cases from the Indian Territory tried before the United States Court here, who expose themselves to sickness and death by their carelessness ; and to the further fact that cities or towns having a public charity hospital, as is the case here, draw a certain num- ber of chronic and incurable. cases from a large scope of contigu- ous territory. With an ideal climate, a perfect sewer system, a . pure water supply, and no local causes for disease, there is no reason why Fort Smith should not always rank in point of health- fulness among the first cities of America."
The executions of criminals tried by the United States Court (which has jurisdiction over a large part of the Indian Territory, and consequently the largest criminal docket in the country), also enters into the Fort Smith death rate as given. Fort Smith is as healthy as most of the cities of the country, as shown by the following mortality table taken from the recent census returns :
Annual death rate per 1,000.
CITIES.
Chicago, Ill. 19.6
St. Louis, Mo 18.3
San Francisco 22.8
Cincinnati, O 22.3
New Orleans, La. 29.2
Detroit, Mich 18.8
Cleveland, O 19.2
Pittsburg, Pa. 21.3
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Fort Smith, Ark.
Annual death rate per 1,000.
CITIES.
Milwaukee, Wis 17.8
Louisville, Ky 21.9
Kansas City, Mo 16.5
Denver, Col. 26.9
Indianapolis, Ind 16.2
Toledo, O. 16.4
Nashville, Tenn 18.8
Galveston, Tex.
20.4
Altoona, Pa.
15.3
CLIMATE. 1628916
The climate of Arkansas is not so strictly governed by latitude as many other parts of the country, from the fact that the ranges of hills and mountains materially modify the temperature. There can be found greater variation in the thermometer at any given hour of the day in Arkansas than in any State where the surface is less broken. The ranges of hills and mountains shelter the State from the blizzards of the Northern States and the cold waves of the Southwest called northers.
The farming season in the region around Fort Smith is at least five weeks longer than in the mountain or northern counties, not more than fifty miles distant. It is not necessary in the sum- mer season to make a long trip north to find a change of temperature. In most parts of the State, by traveling a few miles, a change may be found by going to the mountain ridges, where quite a number of very creditable summer resorts have already been established.
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