USA > Kentucky > Jefferson County > Louisville > The city of Louisville and a glimpse of Kentucky > Part 11
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To this remarkably favorable climate we are indebted in a great measure, no doubt. for the well-known speed and endurance of our horses, and the superior development of all our domestic animals which has made the name of Ken- tucky famous throughout the world. But its wonderful salubrity is attested in a still more striking degree, not only by our comparatively low rate of annual mortality, but hy the extraordinary size and strength of our adult population. Mark me, I do not merely assume this. The official tables of measurements taken during the war between the States show that among the hundreds of thousands of volunteers from all parts of the Union, including natives and foreign- ers, those born and reared in Kentucky and the adjoining State of Tennessee, exceeded all others in their average height, weight, size of head, circumference of chest, and ratio of weight to stature.
AGRICULTURE.
But while we are thus singularly fortunate in our climate we are no less favored in the fertility of our soil and the variety of its products. I stand at this moment upon one of the most wonderful plateans to be seen upon the broad and varied face of this spacious earth ; a tract of near ten million acres of land, heauteous as the poet's dream of Cashmere ; hounteons as the valley of the Nile -resting like a jeweled diadem upon the queenly brow of my native Common- wealth. When I look over its broad and undulating fields, teeming with almost every variety of product known to our latitude, and see its peaceful pastures, carpeted with perennial green, with their quiet flocks and splendid herds repos- ing upon the shady banks of murmuring streams, I almost feel that it would be but a rude awakening from a most de- licious dream to think of other portions of the State at all. But when I recur to that marvelously beautiful and prolific scope of country including portions of Warren, Simpson, Logan, Todd, Christian, Trigg, and Caldwell, or to the wonder- ful grain producing counties of Daviess, Henderson, and Union, or to the rich alluvial bottoms skirting our innumerable water-courses everywhere, or to the generous nplands to be found in almost every agricultural county in the State, I congratulate myself that there are numerous sections of Kentucky which rival, if they do not surpass, her own far- famed " Bluegrass Region " in many of the products of her soil.
In fact, there is scarcely a county in the State in which, with proper cultivation, almost any commodity within the agricultural range of our climate might not be produced, not only in sufficient quantities for home consumption, hut with a profitable margin for export to less favored sections. In some one or more of those commodities, there has not been a decade from IS10 to the present, in which Kentucky has not far ontstripped all her sister States, notwithstanding the fact that at least one-half her primeval forests remain to this day untouched by the woodman's ax. This is especially true of tobacco, which has probably contributed more to the actual wealth of the State within the last thirty years than all other crops combined, having produced to the grower during that period, according to reliable records, over $267,000,000, or an average of $8,900,000 per annum ; and so general has been the distribution of that enormous sum throughout the State that there is scarcely a single county which has not received some portion of it. This fact alone is sufficient to show that in our agricultural resources themselves we possess a mine of wealth exceeding all the gold of California.
TIMBER.
But I remarked a moment ago that fully fifty per cent. of our virgin forest still stands where it was planted by the hand of providence centuries ago. That is true ; and if you would form some faint estimate of the enormous extent and value of that tremendous source of wealth to our State, you have but to pass along the streams which find their source in our mountains and count the thousands and thousands of rafts which line their banks, all made up of the most val- uahle hardwoods to be found on the continent. And yet if you would go to the fountain head you would be amazed to find the diminution of the original stock almost inappreciable, notwithstanding this constant and enormous de- pletion.
WATER-COURSES.
But speaking of these countless rafts of valuable timber reminds me of another natural advantage we enjoy, the importance of which it would be almost impossible to overestimate. I allude to our extraordinary facilities for water transportation. Besides our navigable water boundary of eight hundred and thirteen miles our territory is penetrated by more miles of natural water-ways adapted to commercial transportation than any other State in the Union. We have largely over a thousand miles already navigable at all stages of water, and it is estimated that there are over three thou_ sand miles in addition, which can he readily made so by the ordinary methods of river improvement. These streams traverse directly or connect with wide districts, abounding in almost every variety of agricultural product, filled with inexhaustible deposits of valuable minerals, or covered with enormous forests of the finest timber in the world, giving access to the entire Mississippi system of inland navigation, reaching nearly twenty-five thousand miles in extent.
MINERAL RESOURCES.
But if the natural advantages of Kentucky, thus patent to the most casual observer, are so extraordinary, they are not more so than the inconceivable stores of hidden wealth which lie beneath her surface, waiting for the hand of intel- ligent enterprise to drag them forth. Building stones of great variety and excellent quality abound in almost every section of the State. The petroleum wells of Barren, Cumberland, and Wayne counties have been yielding up the their treasures for years, and there are the strongest reasons for believing that enormous reservoirs of the same material ex- ist in other localities yet untried. Extensive deposits of marl sufficiently impregnated with potash and soda to render them as valuable as fertilizers for some soils as the phosphate heds of South Carolina have already been discovered in Grayson, Edmonson, Breckinridge, Caldwell, Christian, and Livingston counties, and are, no doubt, to be found in equal or greater quantities in other sections of the State where similar geologic conditions exist.
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Fire and pottery clays of the finest quality occur in great abundance beneath the gravel beds of the Tennessee river, in numerous places iu Central Kentucky, and throughout the extensive coal measures in both the eastern and western portions of the State. What the value of some of these clays might be if the experiments now being made with a view of producing aluminum at a cost that would render it an article of common use is, no doubt, a matter of pleasing spec- ulation to you, especially, who sit at this moment within less than an hour's travel of a single deposit amounting to millious on millions of tons, which would yield from fifty to sixty per cent. of that very remarkable and valuable metal.
But one of the most striking illustrations of that singular combination of a variety of natural resources, which is to be found nearly everywhere in Kentucky, may be seen in a few hours of leisurely travel along a portion of the border of Meade county, bounded on the north by a bend of the Ohio, with over seventy-five miles of river front, a large pro- portion of which is alluvial bottom of inexhaustible fertility. Stopping at a point on the will find of the the Louisville & Paducah Railroad, near the summit of Muldraugh's Hill, you au almost inexhaustible supply of white sand, which, for the manufacture finer qualities of glass, is said to be the equal of any to be found upon coutinent. Within a walk of a mile or two, you will reach the Gra- hampton Mills, on Otter creek, with their hundreds of busy spin- dles and clattering looms, engaged iu the profitable manufacture of seamless bagging. Turning down the little stream you will pass, perhaps, half a dozen equally eligible but unoccupied mill
FALLS OF THE OHIO-LOUISVILLE BRIDGE.
sites in as mauy miles, before you reach its mouth. There you will observe in the river bluff a stratum of pure hydraulic limestone, thirty feet in thickness, with facilities for the manufacture of more than a thousand barrels of cement a day, gravitation being the only motive power required to remove the stone from the quarry to the kilns, from the kilns to the crushers, aud from the crushers to the deck of the steamer, or the barge below. Dropping down the river a few miles along the margin of broad bottom fields you will come to a rich deposit of pottery clay, reaching within a few feet of the water's edge. where the manufactured commodity can be removed out of the workshop or the wareroom on to the boat. A mile or two further down you will reach the celebrated Moreman salt well, which for more than twenty years has been continuously pouring out its briny torrent with more than sufficient fuel in the form of natural gas to reduce its waters to a salt, which has been awarded the first premiums in Europe and America ; and in less thau a mile further you will find a steam flouring mill, which has been running for years with heat furnished entirely by the same convenient and inexpensive material.
I might extend this picture almost indefinitely, but I need not detain you with such things as these. Interesting as they are to me, and important as they may he to others, they seem dwarfed into insiguificance when compared with the measureless wealth of our State in
COAL AND IRON.
Of these it might be sufficient to say, in an address like this, that the combined area of the coal fields of Kentucky is greater, in superficial extent, and in the aggregate thickness of their workable beds, than those of Pennsylvania, or of Great Britain and Ireland together. That they underlie the whole or part of twenty-nine counties of our State comprising over fourteen thousand square miles, in a territory of only forty thousand four hundred ; and that through-
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out these vast and inexhaustible measures, containing almost every variety of coal, or in convenient proximity to them, are to be found abundant deposits of rich and valuable iron ores, from which may be produced a quality of iron, for mauy purposes quequaled by any other in the world.
I trust you will pardon me, however, if I shall be somewhat more specific. We hear it frequently said, that with all our wonderful deposits of coal we can never compete with Pennsylvania; that a single flood in the Ohio river will fetch from Pittsburgh more coal thau we can bring to market from our mines ju a year ; and that, with all our abundance of superior iron ores, our waut of transportation facilities will forever prevent our competing with Alabama and Tennessee in the production of iron. And I am free to admit that if we had no water transportation of our own, and if coals were used only by those liviug along the Ohio, and if it were impossible to coustruct railways, or to transport the products of our mines over them at rates which would be profitable to the carrier without being oppressive to the producer, there might be some force in these somewhat exaggerated objections. But we shall presently see that shrewd, far-seeing business meu, who have large capital to invest, are taking a very different view of the matter, and that these objections have really no foundation, either iu reason or ju fact.
The census report on the statistics of iron aud steel production in the United States for 1880 shows that "the average distauce over which all the domestic iron ore, which is consumed iu the blast furuaces of this country, is trans- ported is not less than four hundred miles ; and the average distance over which the fuel which is used to smelt it is hauled is not less than two hundred miles."
Now, in the light of these facts, let us look, for a mnomneut, at our Westeru coal fields, underlying nine counties and embracing au area of over four thousand square miles.
Instead of a haul of four hundred miles for our ores, or two hundred for our fuel, we find these tremendous meas- ures side by side, with the rich deposits of irou in the counties of Grayson, Edmousou, and Butler, on the east, aud the great Cumberland river iron region, extending through the counties of Crittenden, Caldwell, Livingston, Lyon, aud Trigg, on the west, while iu the very heart of the fields themselves -as may be seeu in Muhlenburg- there are localities in which the ore is found resting immediately above an excellent quality of coking coal, so that both can be mined together with comparatively little expense.
We find them, moreover, almost if not quite as convenient to water transportation as the coal mines of Pennsylvania- touching the Ohio at Dekoveu, couuected with the Cumberland within a trifling distauce by rail, aud peuetrated by the Tradewater and Green rivers, both navigable streams. But this richly-endowed section of our State is not only fortunately located with regard to the great Mississippi system of inland navigatiou, but it has for years past heen attracting the attention of intelligent capital, and its coal measures and iron beds are being rapidly gridironed by railways. The New- port News & Mississippi Valley Railway passes directly through them from east to west, while they are traversed from north to south by railroads leading from Oweushoro to Russellville ; from Henderson to Nashville ; from Princeton to Clarksville; and from Hendersou through the counties of Union, Crittenden, and Caldwell, to the ore beds of Trigg, where the proprietors of the Dekoven mines are making preparations for the extensive manufacture of iron.
Apart, however, from all idea of developing au extended or profitable iron industry in the western portion of our State, the fact remaius that it is brought into immediate connection with the great and continually widening railroad systems of the South and South-west, the larger parts of which extend through regions entirely destitute of coal ; and that alone is sufficient to insure heavy and constantly jucreasing drafts upon the enormous treasures of its coal fields uutil long after this generation shall have passed away.
But let us look for a moment at our Eastern coal measures underlying twenty counties, with an area of over ten thousand square miles, a treasure house of such inconceivable dimensions that the imagination reels and recoils from the vain attempt to compass them. To say nothing of the vast deposits of Cannel and other superior coals suitable for steam and domestic purposes, they embrace a remarkable variety, in strata from three and a half to nine feet in thickness, covering au area of a thousand square miles or more, extending through portions of Pike, Letcher, Harlan, Leslie, Breathitt, Floyd, Perry, and Knott counties, and from which a coke cau be made in every respect superior to the far- famed coke of Connellsville, which has for years cut such a conspicuous figure in the industrial history of our country. But what of all that ? Can those vast treasures ever be utilized? Where is the key which is to open their hidden vaults? Let us see.
There are now in the United States, in round numbers, 129,000 thiles of railway, and new lines are being constructed at the rate of hundreds of miles each succeeding year, all of which must be supplied with steel, which is rapidly taking the place of, if it has not already superseded, the iron rail formerly in universal use. Consequently, Bessemer steel has not only become, but must always continue to be, one of the most important and indispensable articles of commerce. The principal part of the ore for the manufacture of this commodity in the United States is derived from the mines of Lake Superior, from which there were shipped within the last year 5,000,000 tons, costing at Cleveland, Ohio, from $7.25 to $7.50 per ton.
But fuel is as indispensable to the production of steel as the ore itself, and Connellsville coke is carried over six hundred miles to the blast furnaces of Chicago, and over seveu hundred and fifty to those of St. Louis. Now, while this is true, there lies within niuety miles of the vast fields of coking coal in south-eastern Kentucky, a bed of iron ore more extensive than the enormous deposits of Missouri and Michigan, which has been ascertained by actual test aud pronounced by competent authorities to be unsurpassed by any ou the earth for the production of Bessemer steel, and which, with proper railroad facilities, could be delivered in the heart of these extraordinary coal measures at a cost not exceeding two dollars and a half per ton.
In addition to this, these coals are within easy reach of the Red river iron region, embracing portions of Estill, see, Powell, Bath, and Menifee counties, and the Hanging Rock region of Greenup. Carter, Boyd, and Lawrence, and still more convenient to the enormous masses of fossiliferous hematite and other excellent ores extending along the foothills of the Cumberland mountains, just across the line from Kentucky, and which must depend upon the coals of this section of our State for smelting purposes.
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In view of such facts as these it is by no means singular that the attention of intelligent and enterprising capitalists is being steadily concentrated upon this marvelous combination of stupendous natural advantages. Not only have many of the more wealthy and sagacious business men of our owu State made large purchases of timher and mineral lauds in this remarkable section, but similar investments have been recently made hy large steel and iron manufacturers in England, in the Eastern States, and from the flourishing, but less favored, localities of Chattanooga and Birmingham.
Three railways from the north and west, already partially constructed, are reaching for the vast treasures of this won- derful region. Que up the Cumberland Valley from the Louisville & Kuoxville Railroad, furnishing an all-rail counection with our own splendid commercial metropolis, and the great cities of Cincinnati, Chicago, aud St. Louis in one direction, and with the great and constantly expanding system of southern railroads iu the other ; the Kentucky Union, which
By permission of Prof. Jos. Desha Pickett, Superintendent of Public Instruction.
THE MOUNTAIN SCHOOL-A WARM DAY.
will no doubt ultimately find one of its termini in your own beautiful city ; and the third up the valley of the Big Sandy, bringing its coals in almost immediate contact with our north-eastern ores, and one of the rich iron regions of Ohio.
There are four other railroads now in process of construction from the East and South, all concentrating upon this same fahulously favored section of our State. The Norfolk & Western, which will furnish it direct connection with the Atlantic coast ; the Cape Fear & Yadkin Valley ; the South Atlantic & Ohio, and the Charleston, Cumberland Gap & Chicago, all leading through the richest iron regions of the South, and furnishing easy communication with an enormous territory almost, if not entirely, destitute of coal.
Now, when we remember that the demand for coke for the manufacture of iron and steel is increasing every year at a tremendous rate ; that for this purpose it is frequently transported over a thousand miles by rail ; that these coal measures will furnish a greater quantity and hetter quality of that material than any other locality in the world; that they are in almost immediate proximity to an inexhaustihle supply of the best and cheapest Bessemer steel ore to be found on the globe ; that they are nearer the center of population of the United States, and to Louisville, Cincinnati, and other great manufacturing cities, as well as to the ore regions of South-western Virginia, Western North Carolina, and East Tennessee, than any other extensive deposit of similar coal yet discovered ; and that with the Kentucky river navigable to the Three Forks, and the railroad facilities I have mentioned, it will find a cheap and ready market for all its products of timber, coal, and iron, we may begin to form some conjecture of the capacity of this remarkable region to contribute to the prosperity and grandeur of our State. And here I trust you will pardon me for saying - as a matter
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of justice to a most excellent and faithful, but poorly paid public officer - that for the prospect of the early and rapid development of this wonderful section of our State, we are mainly indebted to the able aud efficient Director of our Geological Survey, Mr. John R. Procter, whose patient, persistent, intelligent, and unpaid efforts in directing the atteu- tion of railroad companies aud other capitalists in Europe and America to its astonishing resources has done more to promote the progress of Kentucky than all her politicians combined.
PROGRESS.
Permit me also in this counection to disabuse your minds, if they have been unfortunately imbued with the impres- sion which appears to be prevaleut among many, that there is really no such thing as " progress" in Kentucky at all. We hear of booms in Tennessee, hooms in Alabama, booms in Kansas, and booms iu other States, but none in our own, and I am glad of it. I prefer the steady, healthful glow of the sunlight to the startling but momentary glare of the meteor, and I propose to show, hy a brief reference to a few well-authenticated data, that in those things that constitute a sound, substantial prosperity, the progress that Kentucky is making is not only gratifying, but far iu advance of some of the States with which she has frequently been invidiously compared by many who appear to have been totally ignor- aut of the real facts.
The latest report upou the internal commerce of the United States, made by the Bureau of Statistics at Washing- ton, shows that the amount of capital invested iu mining and manufacturing industries iu Kentucky during the two years ending December 30, ISS6, was $46,707,200 - $20,022,200 more than in Alabama, notwithstanding all that has been said of her remarkable progress - $30,233, 200 more than in Arkansas ; $3,558,200 more than in both combined, and, with the exception of those two $7,336,400 more than all the other Southern States together ; aud that the increase in 1886 was $10, 100, Soo greater than in 1885. The same authority shows that the increase in the value of products mauu- factured iu the State from 1880 to 1885 was $16, 109,000 greater than the increase for the entire preceding decade ; that while the increase iu the sales of leaf tobacco in the great market at Louisville was 22,279 hogsleads, or fifty-four per cent. for the ten years from 1870 to 18So, the increase for the following five years was 42,399, or sixty-five per ceut., reaching the enormous amount of 107,670 hogs- heads in the single year ISS5 ; while for the same year-the last one report- ed-we had an increase upon the one preceding of 8, 124 mules, 11, 156 horses, 28, 196 cattle, 334,- 000 bushels of wheat, 18,680,000 bushels of corn, and 17,455,000 ponuds of tobacco.
ingly exhibited, however, by the records of the Louisville Clearing House, which show that the clearings for the year ending December 31, 1886, were $233, 282, 262.23, against $107,349,171 for 1876, or $18,583,918.23 more than twice as much ; and that for the five mouths just closed there was au increase of $18,- 664,323 upon the clearings for the corresponding five mouths of last year.
Our healthy aud con- servative progress, espe- cially as regards the com- mercial growth of our COURIER TOURHAT EN To these facts, which are of themselves abun- A Mountain Homestead. dautly sufficient to show beautiful aud prosperous metropolis, is more strik- the gratifying prosperity of Kentucky, it may be added that we now have under contract and in process of rapid con- struction five hundred and one miles of new railroad, against one hnudred and one miles constructed last year - more, in fact, than can be claimed for any other State in the Uniou, with, perhaps, a single exception.
TAXATION AND DEBT.
There is another singular delusion with regard to our State, uuder which some uuiuformed minds may, perhaps, honestly labor, but which may be dispelled by the simple statement of a few plain facts. It is the impression, encour- aged too often, I fear, by those who ought to know better, that our taxation is vastly disproportioned to our wealth, our revenues devoted to unworthy purposes, aud our indehteduess too grievous to bear-in other words, that Kentucky, in her corporate sense, is a miserable, misgoverned, tax-ridden, debt-ladeued pauper, when nothing could be more directly contrary to the truth.
In the report of the census of ISSo, the true aggregate valuation of our assessable wealth was estimated at $902, 000,- 000, which, considering the seven years which have since elapsed, it would be entirely safe to estimate, according to the same ratio of increase during the preceding decade, at a thousand million dollars. Yet it is set down by our assessors for the present fiscal year, at only $484,491,690, less than one half its real assessable value. Upon this the rate of taxa- tion for all State purposes is forty-seven and a half cents on each hundred dollars, equivalent to less than twenty-three cents upon a correct assessment. Of that forty-seven and a half cents, twenty-six are appropriated to our educational funds, leaving only twenty-one and a half for all other purposes ; and of this remainder fully five ceuts are devoted to our public charities, leaving only sixteen and a half, or the equivalent of a tax of eight and a quarter cents ou each oue hundred dollars of our actual assessable wealth, to meet all the other expenditures of our State government, fixed and coutingent. Yet, while this is true, and notwithstanding the fact that fully one-half the State is still in virgin forests and undeveloped by internal improvements the same census report ranks Kentucky as the fourteenth State in the Union in regard to the assessed value of property, and the thirty-fifth as to the amount of taxation . per capita ; and, moreover, that while thirty-four States tax their people a higher amount per capita, but four others in the entire Union appropriate anything like the same proportion of the revenues derived from State taxation to educational purposes.
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