USA > Kentucky > Jefferson County > Louisville > The city of Louisville and a glimpse of Kentucky > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29
Louisville has eleven orphanages, two homes for friendless women, a home for old ladies, and a central organized charity association.
The facts enumerated describe to the thoughtful reader a population of the highest and most prosperous type. Edu- cation being free and supplemented with all the advantages that an ambition for learning can demand, it follows that the people are intelligent, active, and enterprising. A people are better represented by their newspaper press than hy any other public expression. In this respect Louisville surpasses many much larger cities. There are four daily papers, two morning aud two evening, that rank in ability, enterprise, and success with any in the country. The oldest and most celebrated is the Courier-Journal, edited by Henry Watterson. The Commercial, also a morning paper, and the Post and the Times, evening, are publications of exceptional standard. Besides these, there are numerous weekly and special papers and periodicals. The city has six theaters, five of which are constantly maintained, and are equal in beauty and reputation to the best in the country. 1
Business is organized through the Board of Trade which has about 700 members and occupies one of the handsomest buildings in the city. The Commercial Club, composed of the younger business and professional men, has a member-
THE LOUISVILLE WORK HOUSE.
ship of about 500, and has done much since its organization to promote the growth and encourage the development of Louisville. It was organized for that purpose, and its services can always be commanded to assist proper enterprises and to forward public movements. The club is now making arrangements to erect a great building for its quarters which will be one of the most costly and conspicuous structures in Louisville.
The officers of The Board of Trade in ISS7 are: President, Harry Weissinger ; Vice-Presidents : First, William Corn- wall, Jr. ; Second, Thomas H. Sherley ; Third, George Gaulbert ; Fourth, Andrew Cowan ; Fifth, Charles T. Ballard ; Treasurer, George H. Moore; Superintendent, James F. Buckner, Jr. ; Secretary of Transportation, A. V. Lafayette. The officers of the Commercial Club are : President, George A. Robinson ; Vice-Presidents : First, Peyton N. Clarke ; Second, John H. Sutcliffe ; Treasurer, Julius W. Beilstein ; Secretary, Angus R. Allmoud.
There are a number of social clubs in Louisville of great wealth and influence. Principal among these, and possess- ing their owu establishments, are The Pendennis, with 300 members; The Standard, with 110; The Pelham, with 115; The Brownson, with 140; and The Progress, with 100. There are few clubs in the South so splendidly established as The Pendeunis and The Standard.
LOUISVILLE'S RESOURCES.
A consideration of Louisville as a point for commercial and manufacturing enterprises must be prefaced by a state- ment of the advantages, natural and artificial, which she possesses. These are comprised in the extent and cheapness of transportation for raw material and manufactured products, in the extent and nearness of material, the proximity of markets of consumption, and the various incidental features of labor, supplies, and real estate.
There is no city in the world more abundantly supplied with transportation facilities. Steamers leaving the wharf at Louisville can ply on thirty-two navigable rivers, having an aggregate length of 25,000 miles. Kentucky aloue has over 1,600 miles of navigable streams-more than any State in the Union-and they flow in sections rich in timber, coal, and iron. Steamers already penetrate to these, and the improvements contemplated by the Federal Government
13
will add to the navigable distance while vastly increasing the productiveness of river commerce. The railway system of Louisville is composed of sixteen roads, entering from all directions, four of which have been organized and cou- structed, or are being constructed, within the past three years. Within five years the railroad facilities have been nearly doubled, with the result of increasing traffic, greatly reducing the rates of transportation, and contributing to the rapid and phenomenal development of the city. During 1887 work was actively prosecuted upon railway lines, local and general, radiating from Louisville to the following extent :
ROADS.
MILES.
COST.
Louisville Southern
So
$2,200,000
Louisville, St. Louis & Texas .
I39
2,500,000
Louisville, Cincinnati & Dayton
1.47
3,750,000
Daisy Belt Railroad .
12
400,000
New Albany aud Eastern counections
160,000
New Jeffersonville Railway Bridge ( organized) .
1,500,000
Street Railway Extensions
60,000
Total
378
$10,570,000
This table will show the activity that prevails in railroad building, and the work has been prosecuted with such vigor that all the enterprises will be opened by the summer of 1888. These roads will uucover new territories filled with coal, iron, and stone ; sections immensely rich in agricultural lands that have only been waiting for transportation facil- ities to greatly increase their development. The completion of the new line of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad to Pineville, at the entrance of the famous Cumberland Valley, opens to development 10,000 square miles of timher aud coal and great quantities of iron ore. This is the most important railroad that has heeu constructed in the United States for teu years and is the first to enter the wonderful regiou so often descrihed by geologists and so long neglected hy cap- italists. Besides these roads, others are projected and several are nearly prepared to commence operatious, but those named are practically finished.
During the present year more miles of railroad were under construction in Kentucky than in any other State in the Union, save one. There were ten new lines building with mileage as follows :
Coviugtou, Maysville & Big Sandy . . 140 miles
Louisville, St. Louis & Texas 150 miles
Clarksville & Princeton 53
Ohio Valley
95 34 "
Bardstown & Springfield 17
Cumberland Valley
45
Chesapeake & Nashville
35
Elizabethtown & Hodgenville 12
Versailles, Georgetown & Paris
15
Total .
63034 "
Louisville Southern . 68
In this table is not included the Louisville, Cincinnati & Dayton, which, although it will greatly contribute to the growth of Louisville, is located through Indiana and Ohio.
With the rapid building of railroads iu Kentucky, nothing is surer than the rapid growth of Louisville. As the metropolis of the State all railroads seek Louisville as a center of operations. Already the Louisville & Nashville, own- ing and controlling nearly 500 miles, and having a large share in the management of 1,500 miles more, has its headquar- ters here, as has also the Louisville, Evansville & St. Louis. The great Huntington system, with its two roads, the Chesapeake & Ohio and the Chesapeake, Ohio & South-western, running east to the Atlantic, and, hy associated lines, west to the Pacific, has a general passenger office here, and property interests in the Short Route, Union depot, etc., equal to its property interests anywhere in the country. The Pennsylvania Company has a fine passenger depot, the general freight office, and the Superintendent's office, as well as extensive freight yards. The Louisville, New Albany & Chicago has important terminals at New Albany, while the Oneen & Crescent and the Ohio & Mississippi have both freight and passenger offices, and the Ohio & Mississippi has a depot and important terminals at Fourteenth and Main. These roads, connecting Louisville closely with the great rail systems of the continent, and selling tickets to New Brunswick, British Columbia, and Mexico, are hound, gradually, to establish more important offices here, and many of them to acquire and improve more property. Indeed, the Pennsylvania Company is now on the point of building extensive freight honses and terminals uear Main, between Fourteenth and Fifteenth, at a cost of $180,000. Mr. Huntington has given evidence of bis faith in Louisville and his readiness to put his money here by the construction of the new Union depot and the prompt building, for the Daisy line, of several smaller depots.
The Louisville Southern will certainly make Louisville its headquarters, and locate here its sbops, freight bouses, etc. A plant has already been considered for building for it in Portland, convenient to the Kentucky & Indiana Bridge, a freight depot with yards that will give room for all business as it may grow for the next fifty years. The Louisville, St. Louis & Texas and the Louisville, Cincinnati & Dayton, with proper treatment, will also place their terminals here. These, with further growth of the old roads in the next ten years, are good for an increase of population aggregating 30,000 people, and an added property value of $10,000,000.
The rivers and railroads furnish Louisville quick and ready access to all the raw materials used in American mann- factures, and to immense fields of fuel. The Western Kentucky coal field, comprising an area of 4,000 square miles, lies about seventy miles south-west of the city and is penetrated hy Green river, which is navigable during slack water throughout its limits. It is also penetrated by several railroad liues. The topography of the country heing favorable to the coustruction of railroads, others are building, and when Green river is made free of tolls the development of the coal will be greatly accelerated. At present, many great mines are operated and Cannel coal is shipped to England. The Easteru coal field, which has just been reached by the Pineville branch of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, covers 10,000 square miles, or one-fourth of the area of the whole State. The coking coal deposits-among the finest yet discov- ered iu the world-are estimated to cover about 2,000 square miles, an area hetween thirty and forty times as great as that of the Connellsville district in Pennsylvania. The existence of such enormons coal deposits on all sides of Louis-
14
ville has had the effect of making coal for fuel cheaper in this city than anywhere else in the country. Coal miners recognize it as the lowest market, and the paradoxical spectacle is often presented of Pittsburgh coal being brought to Louisville and sold for less than it brings at Pittsburgh.
The cost of coal has declined so greatly through the development of the unlimited supplies in Kentucky that the cost of steam power in Louisville is less than the cost of water power in New England. A patient inquiry into the rentals and cost of water power in eleven New England manufacturing towus disclosed the fact that, while the average cost per horse power per year of twenty-four hours per day for 300 days was $46, the most liberal estimates made as to the cost of steam power in Louisville show it to be less than $30. Contracts are made here for annual supplies of coal at from $1.25 to $1.60 per ton, the cost being regulated, of course, by the amount and the usual market influences. It is easily capable of demonstration, however, by the books of any of the large manufacturing establishments, that the cost of fuel in Louisville is greatly less, and that the fluctuations are less marked than in auy of the large cities.
Coexisteut with these coal fields are forests of the finest timber known to the market. The virgin forest of Eastern Kentucky covers 10,000 square miles, and the Southern and Western forests are equally valuable aud extensive. A very
1
KENTUCKY & INDIANA BRIDGE.
successful and intelligent manufacturer of Louisville, himself using enormous supplies of lumber, says, writing on the subject of the timber resources of the State, with special reference to the advantages of Louisville as a market :
"My special study of the timber has been largely confined to the supplies of white oak, hickory, aud poplar, suitable for wagon manufacture, along the line of railroads and improved water courses naturally tributary to the Louisville market. This embraces but a small portion of the area aud of the timber wealth of the State and that portion which has suffered most from clearings for farms and from cutting to supply manufacturers iu this and other States. Nor does it embrace those portions of the State most heavily timbered originally. And yet, even in these sections, especially a few miles off the lines of such roads and streams, there is au abundaut supply of these and other woods to meet the demands of factories now in operation, and of those that are likely to be built, for years to come. Drawing from these sources and from Southern Indiana and Northern Tennessee, Louisville is now the best and cheapest hardwood lumber market in this country, if not in the world. And yet the trade is but in its infancy, having had an existence for ouly six or seven years. Of the superior quality of this timber I can speak with confidence, having tested it thoroughly in comparison with the products of half a dozen States North and South of Kentucky. For strength, toughness, and durability the hard woods from the Southern half of Indiana, Kentucky, and the Northern counties of Tennessee surpass any found elsewhere, and give to Louisville, as a place for the manufacture of all articles into which wood and iron enter, superior ad- vantages, while its central position, railroads in operation and in process of construction, and water facilities assure the lowest rates of freight. Already the factories of the North and North-west, having measurably exhausted the timber in their vicinities, are drawing a considerable portion of their supplies from this section, and many of them will ultimately be compelled to move nearer to the source of these supplies. The reason of the superiority of the timber over the same kinds north or south of this region is probably owing to the more favorable division of the growing and resting and indurating seasons resulting from its climate. Farther South the period of growth is so rapid and protracted that it does
15
not sufficiently harden, hence, is too porous aud brittle. Farther north it is too short and the wood is too hard and ine- lastic. But the section referred to, as previously stated, furnishes but a small per cent. of the timher of the State. Except as cleared for farming and thiuned out along the navigable streams and the railroads and in the vicinity of a few iron furnaces, the timber of the State is practically untouched by the ax and bas never been wasted hy forest fires. In large sections of Western, Southern, aud Eastern Kentucky are found verdaut forests of hundreds of thousands of acres heavily timbered with the finest and largest growths of white oak, chestnut oak, hickory, poplar, pine, chestnut, aud other kinds of trees, indigenous to a temper- ate zone. All over the State, but greatly scattered, except iu places remote from lines of transportation, is found black and white walnut of the largest size and finest quality, and in some portions of Easteru Kentucky, in large forests. On the ridges, hills, and mountains of Eastern and South-eastern Kentucky, along the tributaries of the Big Sandy, Licking, Kentucky, and Cumberland rivers the land is too steep to he ever profitably cultivated; and if the timber is judiciously aud systematically cut, it will renew itself throughout the ages. Calculations based on actual experience show that a furnace making some 3,000 tons of char- coal irou annually, located ou a tract of 10,000 acres, will have a perpetual sup- ply of suitable fuel. A tract of 100,000 acres, if cut regularly and systematically as is done in the timber districts of Canada, would continually renew itself and never hecome exhausted. It is a peculiarity of the timher of this State that in large sections the second growth is superior in the kinds of timher to the forest. The railroads projected and under construction, and the improvements of the On Fourth Street. water ways will bring into the market, within a few years, the timber from im- mense tracts of land heretofore valueless."
Louisville is also the nearest practicable market for the great deposits of iron ore and coking coal in South-eastern Kentucky now about to be opened by various railroad lines, and the improvement of the Kentucky river, as explained in the article in this book hy the Hon. J. Stoddard Johnston. In addition, she is the natural gateway to the cele- brated Bluegrass region, the finest agricultural territory, perhaps, in the United States. She is thus always amply sup- plied with food articles. The beef and mutton from this section are celebrated everywhere. The border lands of the Bluegrass are hill counties, admirably adapted to the production of five fruits in great abundance. The country surround- ing Louisville is excellent for farming and garden purposes. Jefferson county, of which Louisville is the seat, is one of the largest potato producing counties, if not actually the largest, in the United States. The receipts of potatoes at this point in 1886 were 121,637 barrels, and the shipments 225, 814, showing that the county raised 104, 177 barrels. This is an increase of 95,000 barrels since 1880. The prices of produce are nearly always lower in the markets of Louisville than in any other Western and Southern city, aud the laboriug population can be better fed here than anywhere in the South.
COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES,
Having thus shown Louisville's situation with respect to transportation and proximity to raw materials of all sorts, and that the city is situated in the midst of an agricultural region capable of supporting many millions of people, it re- mains to see what the actual facts are with regard to her industries and commerce, and to point out the opportunities for profitable investment, and the terms uuder which manufactories can be established.
It is incomparably the greatest tobacco market in the world, not ouly in the bulk of its handlings, but in their variety. Situated midway in the great tobacco producing territory, stretching from the Mississippi river across Kentucky, Ten- nessee, and Virginia, every grade of the product seeks its market. Que-third of all the tobacco raised in North America was handled in the warehouses of Louisville in 1885 aud 1886. In the latter year there were 103,475 hogsheads, or 125,000,000 pounds, of raw tobacco received on the market, valued at $11,625,000 according to the Treasury Department's average of the value per pound to producers. The actual value of the tobacco handled here was nearly $20,- 000,000. The great importance of the Louisville tobacco market is in its universal character, being the only city in the United States where all grades can be obtained. Cincinnati, St. Louis, Paducah, Kentucky, and Clarksville, Tennessee, are respect- able markets, but only for certain classes or grades. At Louisville, all grades, from the finest of white Burley to the commouest " Regie " for European governmental contracts, can be obtained. There are resident representatives of consumers in every part of the world. Agencies of the enormously rich and historic firms of Liverpool, London, Bremen, and Antwerp, of the governmental monopolies of Frauce, Spain, and Italy, and of the great manufacturing houses of America are maintained in Louisville because all demands can he supplied here aloue.
There are several features which tend to maintain the supremacy of Louisville as a tobacco market already established hy her geographical position. First is the enterprise of her warehousemen, who have a vast capital invested, and who have developed and extended their operations with a judgment and coolness that is bound to command success. Louisville has fifteen warehouses, and through the building of the new Falls City, Enterprise, and Central warehouses, and storage On Fourth Street. houses erected and being erected mainly for the purpose of storing tobacco, the handling capacity of the Louisville market may be safely called fifty per cent. greater than two years ago. Cincinnati, the only city that has made an exhaustive effort to rival Louisville, has but six warehouses, aud has long ago dropped out of sight as a competitor. The Cincinnati market deals only with Burley leaf.
16
Most of the tobacco chewed in the world is what is called "uavy " plug, having received its name from being at first dealt out by the governments of Europe to their seamen. This tobacco, saturated with sugar and licorice, is by vast odds the favorite solitary consolation of men who do hard labor aud engage in rough service the world over. It is chewed by soldiers in all armies, seamen in all navies and under every flag aud clime ; the laborer on the streets, the public roads, and the railroads, the man with the skilled trade, and the person whose position in life makes him ashamed of the vice-the incalculable majority find solace in the use of the dark and sweet plug, and millions of jaws keep time to the same weakness. For many years the manufacture of the navy plug has been one of the great interests of Louis- ville, and the bulk of the Western tobacco goes into that product. Consequently, Louisville is the most important point for supply for the greatest of the chewing tobacco demand.
Here is a table showing the warehouse movement of tobacco in hogsheads in Louisville for the past eleven years. In that time the market has enlarged nearly 500 per cent., sometimes by bold leaps, hut usually by sure progression :
YEAR.
RECEIPTS.
DELIVERIES.
OFFERINGS.
STOCK END OF MONTH.
1886
103, 112
92,238
125,573
15,515
1885
IOS,S21
96,566
127,946
9,580
ISS4
71,154
68,756
81, 980
5,70I
IS83
71,866
73,020
$8,900
3,294
ISS2
53,975
53,645
61,440
5,912
ISSI .
54.460
57,220
67,400
4,888
ISSO .
52,609
58,358
65,28I
7,639
1879
48,870
49,037
58,035
13,355
IS78 .
69,916
61,072
71,028
13,361
1877
50,532
50,462
56,218
6,018
1876 .
54,883
53,610
61,352
5,806
IS75 .
24, 200
25,031
27,700
5,810
During 1887 there has developed a tendency to hold tobacco in storage at this point instead of shipping to New York and abroad to await demand. This tendency promises to develop the market more and to increase the advantages of Louisville as a point for manufacturing tobacco.
There are at preseut fifteen warehouses, thirteen re-handling establishments, sixteen manufactories of chewing and smoking tobaccos, seventy-nine cigar manufactories, and thirty-four brokers engaged in the trade, apart from agents and others who can not be classified conveniently. They employ millions of capital and more than 5,000 work- meu.
The production of and trade in fine Bourbon whiskies, one of the greatest industries of Kentucky, engages a large amount of capital in Louisville. The collection district, of which Louisville is the center, contains one hundred registered grain distilleries, one- half the number in the State. The producing capacity of these houses is nearly So,ooo gallons per day. The gross product during the five years ending June 30, 1887, was over 35,000,000 gallons, upon which internal revenue taxes to the amount of $29, 154,319 were paid at the collector's office. About $3,000,000 of taxes were remitted by the exportation of over 3,000,000 gallons in that time. There are required to barrel the product of the Louisville district about 165,000 casks, and the capital invested in the distilleries is estimated at $3,- 000,000. The Bourbon whiskies made here are cele- brated as the purest in the world and are universally used for medicinal purposes as well as for beverages.
Other manufacturing and commercial interests, in which Louisville is the largest market in the United States, are as follows :
In the manufacture of Kentucky jeans and jeaus clothing there are four large mills engaged, employ- ing about $1,250,000 capital, 1,250 hauds, aud produc- ing annually nearly 7,500,000 yards of cloth, valued at about $2,250,000. In 1887, the capacity of this indus- try has been increased about twenty per cent. The trade of the world is supplied with this article, and it is known everywhere. This industry has increased eight-fold in ten years.
UNITED STATES CUSTOM HOUSE-FOURTH STREET.
The manufacture of cast gas and water pipe is carried on by the largest establishment in the United States, that of Dennis Long & Co., which has recently enlarged its capacity fifty per cent. There are about 400 hands employed, with a capacity of 250 tons of iron daily, and the output has loug siuce closed similar establishments at Pittsburgh and commands the trade from one ocean to the other. There are twenty-nine foundries making stoves, architectural atid other commercial iron products, employing about 4,000 hands and consuming about 150,000 tons of iron annually. As
C
17
an iron cousumer, Louisville ranks about fifth among the cities of the country. In addition to this, it has recently become a great storage market, not ranking first, but having immense supplies stored that enter into the demand of the country, thus requiring regular quotations. There is a prospect that, as the making of pig iron gets to be a larger and more com- mandiug industry in the South, the importance of the Louisville market will increase, and, being nearer the furnaces and the natural center of distribution, the manufactures of iron ought to grow largely.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.