USA > Kentucky > Jefferson County > Louisville > The city of Louisville and a glimpse of Kentucky > Part 6
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The plan of selling tobacco at anction by sample and in the presence of the exposed hogshead has been pursued in Louisville as far back as the records and recollection of the trade go. It seems to have originated here in the effort to deal fairly with buyer and seller alike and to remove canse of misunderstanding and complaint. Several other cities sell by sample, but not in the presence of the exposed hogshead, because they lack the great warehouse room, one of the characteristic features of the Louisville markets. The auction sale at a tobacco warehouse engages the active skill, judgment, and experience of scores of competitors and, while it is not like the Exchanges of New York or Chicago in uproar aud bustle, the sight is quite as novel and interesting.
The extent of the tobacco trade of Louisville may be realized by illustra- tive statistics. The hogsheads are hauled from the railway station to the warehouses on trucks, some of which, drawn by four horses, will carry four hogsheads, others, drawn by two horses, will carry two hogsheads. Averaging them at three hogsheads aud three horses each, and considering that each hogshead must be hauled from the station and back to it, it would give on the crop of 1886, 103,000 hogsheads-69,000 truck-loads, requiring 207,000 horses. Estimating the length of the teams at thirty feet, the number of trucks baul- ing that tobacco would, if moving in a straight line, with only one foot between each team, make up a caravan 405 miles in length, covering by more than eighty miles the distance along the Ohio river from Pittsburgh to Louis- The Masonic Widows' and Orphans' Home Building. ville. Counting twelve hogsheads to a car-load, it would require 8.585 cars to trausport it. These cars would make up 21412 trains of forty cars each, stretching over seventy-five miles and requiring the efforts of 300 locomotives to move tbem properly. If the 207,000 horses used in the teams were in cavalry line, it would make up a body stretching 414 miles.
These statistics refer solely to the warehouse trade. The manufacture of tobacco, while it is profitably and well conducted, is not nearly so important an industry in Lonisville as it could be made with the advantages of so great a
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market at hand. The tobacco made up bere is, however, well known for its superiority. Labor is cheap, living is inex- pensive, and there are many conditions that stand ready prepared to easily develop the city into a great tobacco manufacturing center.
Fourth street has long been the fashionable shopping thoroughfare and promenade of Louisville. It is on this street that every afternoon, but particularly on Saturdays, are to be seen throngs of women so beautiful as to astonish
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visitors and which have had so much influence toward giving the city abroad the reputation for beautiful women that is uni- versal. The " parade" on Sat- urday is a characteristic sight. There are few shoppers who are not on foot, and the prom- enade is occupied by an endless stream of ladies. This street is lined with many handsome structures and is rapidly ex- tending itself. The southern end is a favorite and beautiful residence section, though met- ropolitan necessities have long since developed many rival streets and built them up with residences that are equaled in beauty and taste by but few cities. It is noticeable that more money is expended upon homes thau upon business houses, and a drive through the residence parts of Louisville is, therefore, productive of much pleasure and astonishment. There are no homes that have cost extraordinary sums, but the average luxury and beauty of the houses give Louisville the appearance of a city of palaces.
The public buildings are handsome and numerous. Those built by the city, especi- ally, are mouuments of taste and liberality. Principal among the public buildings is the new Custom House, at the corner of Fourth and Chestnut, which is of white stone, and VIEW ON MAIN STREET. will cost about $2,500,000 when completed. The County Court House is a massive and pure specimen of Corinthian architecture, with a por- tico of unusual beauty. Adjacent is the City Hall, built at a great cost. The Board of Trade, the City Work House, the Alms House, the School for the Blind, the City Hospital, the University buildings, aud the numerous extensive charities present architectural attractions that serve to ornament every part of the city. The Central Asylum for the Insane, at Anchorage, in the suburbs, is conceded to be one of the most complete and beautiful institutions in the world. There are two driving parks, at the Fair Grounds and Highland Park, both situated to the South of the city, and affording charming drives. The Jockey Club Park, on Churchill Downs, near by, is semi-annually the scene of great race meetings, which have given to the record many of the most remark- able performers and performances.
Iu the eastern end of the city, the new water reservoir affords handsome park opportunities, and in that direction also is Cave Hill Cemetery, by natural advantages of location and lavish expenditure for beautifying purposes, one of the loveliest cemeteries in America.
Louisville is surrounded by many suburbs that are delightful for residence. These are Parkland, to the south-west, Clifton, the Highlands, Anchorage, and Pewee Valley, to the east. The two Indiana cities of New Albany and Jeffer- sonville, with a combined population of about 45,000, are practically a part of Louisville, connected with it by bridges and ferries, aud have a common industrial and commercial interest.
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The rate of growth which Louisville has experienced during the past seven years indicates that the next census will find it the largest city of the South, and one rivaling in business and manufactures any of the cities of the North of equal population.
The people who make up the community are best estimated through the important public works, the beautiful homes, and the large and liberal charities which they have built. The care and taste that have been lavished upou homes speak of people of broad culture, and well founded in the conservative impulses that cherish patriotism and encourage order and intelligence. It is not surprising that such a people should have established so remarkable an educational system in which, from primary knowledge to complete technical learning, all the arts, sciences, and virtues are taught. The extent and variety of the school facilities make Louisville worthy to be called the University City, and out of this atmosphere has evolved a society gifted with taste and intelligence of a high order. The charitable institutions mark a community of generous nature, the reflection of the home life so strikingly characteristic of the people. The homes themselves are the common pride of all. There are few cities in the world where the people are so well housed, or where a larger proportion of the population are thus hound up in the welfare of all. Building is cheap aud land is low ; so that most of the residences are surrounded by spacious grounds, and every house has its yard. It is estimated that in Louisville, the houses average but two to each one hundred feet of ground, while in cities of the same size, they usually average four houses to the same space.
The streets being universally shaded with oak, elm, maple, poplar, and linden trees, the streets in spring and summer preseut a most beautiful aspect. In May, Louisville resembles a garden, so generally are the shaded and cool avenues and streets adorned hy flowers in every yard. During the summer, it deserves its title of the prettiest city in the South. Its healthfulness is remarkable, and its population being order-loving and contented, there are seldom, or never, any disorderly outbreaks. In a word, no more delightful place of residence, and uo more promising place for business, could be selected anywhere in the United States.
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Louisville's Coal Future.
HE basis for unlimited development of wealth and industry in Louisville is admirably shown in a paper by the Hon. J. Stoddard Johnston on "The Kentucky River in its Relation to the Development of the Eastern Kentucky Coal Field." and which was read before the State Industrial and Commer- cial Conference in October, 1887. The development of this region will make of Louisville a greater than Pittsburgh with all its enjoyment of long monopoly of the coal supply of the West :
There are two Coal Fields in Kentucky- the Western, comprising about four thousand square miles, which lies about seventy miles south-west of Louisville, and is bisected by the Green river, which is navigable hy slack-water throughout its limits. It is also penetrated by several rail- roads -the Huntington system, which traverses it from east to west, in its route from Louisville to Memphis, the Louisville & Nashville, which crosses it from north to south with two lines, one from Henderson and the other from Owensboro, the Ohio Valley Railroad from Henderson to Marion, in Crittenden county, and the Louisville, St. Louis & Texas, now in course of construc- tion along the Ohio river, from the mouth of Salt river, looking to a connection with the Ohio Valley road at Hen- derson. The topography of the country which it embraces, not heing mountainous, is favorable for the construction of railroads, and, with those already in operation or projected, it will soon, in conjunction with the navigation of Green river, when made free of tolls, have ample transportation for the development of its resources in coal, iron, and timber. The coal of this field is chiefly a soft bituminous, good for grate and steam purposes, hut as yet has not had satis- factory development for coking. There is also a limited area of Cannel coal -a superior article known as the Breck- inridge Cannel Coal, found in Breckinridge county, in a twenty-eight inch stratum. It covers about two or three thousand acres, and a mine, situated eight miles from the Ohio river, at Cloverport, is worked by an English company who have constructed a railroad by which the coal is conveyed to the river, and thence transported hy water to New Orleans, whence it is shipped to Liverpool.
THE EASTERN COAL FIELD.
The other, or Eastern Coal Field, comprises more than 10,000 square miles, or one-fourth the area of the State. Its eastern boundary is the Cumberland mountains -the boundary between Kentucky and Virginia-and it runs trans- versely across the State from north-east south-westwardly, having an average breadth of seventy-five or eighty miles. It is part of the same coal field which passes northward into West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, embracing the New river and Connellsville Coking Districts, and which traverses Tennessee on the meridian of Chattanooga and Alabama, through Birmingham, widening in its northern course, and narrowing in its southern, until it ceases to exist a short dis- tance south of Birmingham. That the Eastern and Westeru Coal Fields were once united, and that the intervening territory was denuded of coal by erosion, is patent to geologists, but foreign to the scope of this article to discuss.
The altitude of the Eastern Coal Field increases from west to east, the elevation, above sea level, of the hills in which coal is first found, on its western border, being about one thousand feet, and the elevation of the Cumberland range, on the eastern border, heing from three thousand five hundred feet to four thousand feet. On the other hand, the geologic dip of the coal and stratified rocks is to the east and south, being very gradual and uniformn, until reach- ing the Cumberland nplift, when, for a breadth of ahont twenty miles, all the strata of coal which had passed succes- sively below the surface bave been lifted ahove drainage. Underlying the coal is the subcarboniferous limestone, which hounds the western limit of the coal field, but disappears shortly after the first coal develops, and is not seen again until uplifted in the Cumberland range, finding its best development on the Virginia side of the Cumberland mountains.
Both borders of the coal field have also iron deposits of various merit; on the Eastern are hematites, and the Western, limonites and carbonates-a superior quality of the latter being the well-known Red river car-wheel ore, which rests immediately upon the limestone, and of the former the Hocking Valley ore, which lies stratified above the conglomerate sandstone, which caps two workable strata of coal.
While the general features of the Eastern Coal Field conform to this description, I propose in this paper to speak more particularly of a section drawn through the coal field from west to east, from the Three Forks of the Kentucky river to Big Stone Gap in south-west Virginia. This coal field is penetrated by the following rivers : The Big Sandy, which forms the boundary between Kentucky and West Virginia ; the Licking, which enters the Ohio at Cincinnati ; the Kentucky, the three branches of which, heading respectively in the direction of Pound, Big Stone, and Cumberland Gaps, unite in Lee county near the western border of the coal field, and the Cumberland river, which, heading between the main Cumberland mountain and Pine mountain, parallel ranges, flows near the western base of the latter, and breaks through it at Pineville, in Bell county. The topography of the coal field is such that the ranges of the hills or mountains couform in direction with that of the rivers, so that the construction of railroads, while practical in the direction of the drainage, is almost impossible across drainage. As yet there has been but a partial penetration of the coal field ; the Chesapeake & Ohio (Huntington's trans-continental system) passing through but two counties, Carter and Boyd, having coal in hut a limited development. The Cincinnati Southern passes through but a similar strip of its southern horder in the counties of Pulaski and Wayne, while, singularly enough, the Knoxville Branch of the Louis-
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ville & Nashville road skirts it, as it were, in but two more counties, Laurel and Whitley. A local road has been con- structed from Mt. Sterling to the coal in Menifee, but has not proved a successful enterprise. The obstacle to building railroads through this field has been, that it would not pay to run a local road to the coal merely for this mineral, since the cheaper transportation from Pennsylvania and West Virginia by the Ohio river has forbidden competition, and the cost of a tbrough route to connect with the Eastern and South-eastern systems has heretofore been too great to be justi- fied hy the demand jection of several for such transportation. But, latterly, the awakened demand for iron and coal has led to the pro- railroads, on both sides of the mountains, looking to a junction of the two systems. This movement has had its chief impetus in the discovery of rich magnetic and Bessemer iron ores in North Carolina, about seventy-five miles from the Kentucky coal field, and the demand for the coal for its reduction, there being no coal in North Carolina, or nearer than in Kentucky. A road is in course of construction from Bristol, Tennessee, to Big Stone Gap, and the Norfolk & Western has contracted with the Louisville & Nashville Railroad to meet it near the same point, by constructing an extension from the north-east of about eighty miles, for which the contract has been let. To meet this the Louisville & Nashville is now building an extension from a point on its Knoxville Brauch to Pineville, in Bell county, Kentucky, which will be completed within the current year, and thence extended to meet the Norfolk & Western, as stated ahove, giving a new and shorter ronte from Louisville to the seaboard. Other routes are projected from the Cranberry iron region in North Carolina to Cumherland or Big Stone Gap, and from Knoxville to Cumberland Gap, looking in the direction of Cin- cinnati. For the latter road the city of Knoxville has voted a subscription of half a million, and the work has been let to contract.
In all this region of south-western Virginia and south-eastern Kentucky, in view of this railroad development, actual and projected, a great deal of capital is heing invested by eastern and English, as well as by Kentucky, companies. The price of Bull Block. all land has, within the past twelve months, been advanced ten-fold, and a region which has heen long dormant, and apparently without hope of development, is now quickened with a new energy. Immigration and capital are being directed toward it, and visible signs of improvement are apparent in the building of a better class of dwellings, the opening of new roads, greater interest in schools, a general increase of thrift, and the better observance of law. It is the prospective junction of the Lonisville & Nash- ville Railroad with the system of roads lying east of the mountains which has wrought this change, the full import of which will not be realized until the connection has been made a year hence. When the practicability of the junc- tion of the two systems has been demonstrated, and the roads projected on the eastern side of the mountains shall reach the gaps which make the gateways to the Eastern Coal Field, of Kentucky, other roads from the western side will seek connection with them, and other routes be established across the coal field. Already the extension of the Chattaroi Railroad up the Big Sandy is announced as a part of a system from Chicago and Cincinnati to Charleston, South Carolina, while the Kentucky Eastern Railroad, which runs from Riverton, Greenup county, to Willard, Carter county, contemplates extension in the same direction. Huntington, who is building one hundred and forty miles of road from Ashland, Kentucky, to Cincinnati, has bought a local road running from Johnson's Station, on the Mays- ville & Paris road, to Hillsboro, Fleming county, and has been making surveys, indicating a purpose to extend it up the Licking Valley, through the rich Cannel coal fields of Morgan and Magoffin, in the direction of Pound Gap.
The Paris, Frankfort & Georgetown road, for which subscriptions have been voted in Franklin, t Bourhon, is also projected to run from Frankfort, through Georgetown and Paris, to the coal of the Licking and Big Sandy. For the upper Kentucky river several roads are commanding tion. The Kentucky Union, which has thirteen miles constructed from the Chesapeake & Olio, at Hedge's Station, in Clark county, to Clay City, contemplates extension by way of the Three Forks to the Cannel coals of Breathitt county, and thence up the North Fork to Pound or Big Stone Gap. The Lonisville, Cincinnati & Virginia Railroad, from Winchester to the Three Forks, and thence up the Middle Fork to Big Stone Gap, and up the South Fork to Cumberland Gap, has heen voted subscriptions from Clark, Estill, and Lee counties, and within the past ten days has broken ground, thus holding out to Cincinnati the most direct route across the Eastern Coal Field. Still a third route from Richmond, in Madison county, Kentucky, has been under con- sideration for six or eight years, the road to the Three Fork having at one time been located and let to contract, hut suspended by the financial crash of 1884. Its import- ance to Louisville as a possible extension of the Lonisville Southern, and as part of a trunk road to connect St. Louis and Chicago with the south-eastern system, ren- ders it only a question of time when it also will be put under construction.
Scott, and - deposits atten-
THE KENTUCKY RIVER.
But while it will doubtless be but a short time until all the rivers which pene- trate the Eastern Coal Field will he utilized as routes for the construction of rail- The " Kenyon." roads, the Kentucky river, from its central position, the number of its tributaries, and its availability as a means of transportation for a greater part of its course, presents the best advantages for the de- velopment of the Eastern Coal Field, and as a route for the construction of one or more railroads to connect the eastern and western railroad systems. It has three principal tributaries known as the North, Middle, and South Forks, which, rising in the Cumberland mountains, come together, after traversing the heavily timbered coal field near
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Beattyville, in Lee county, at what is known as the Three Forks. From this point, which is near the western border of the coal field to its mouth at Carrollton, a distance of two hundred and fifty miles, it traverses one of the richest sections of the State, leaving the carboniferous formation near the line of Estill and Lee, entering the Trenton limestone in Madison, and flowing through the counties of Clark, Garrard, Fayette, Mercer, Woodford, Anderson, Franklin, Henry, Owen, and Carroll, to the Ohio, through the Lower and Upper Silurian. The project of its improvement by locks and dams was begun by the State fifty years ago, and in 1843 five locks and dams were completed at a cost of over four mill- ions, giving navigation for steamers of three hundred tons for a distance of about one bundred miles from the mouth. The maintenance of the navigation became in time a burthen to the State, and, at the close of the war, the system was practically worthless. Various efforts were made looking to a restoration of the old works and the extension of navi- gation by additional locks and dams to the Three Forks as originally designed, but without result, until in 1879-So the Legislature of Kentucky ceded the locks and dams to the United States, upon condition that Congress would repair them, make navigation free, and extend the system to the Three Forks. Since then, by successive appropriations, aggregating more than half a million, the United States Government has repaired the works, restoring navigation for one hundred miles, and has begun the construction of Lock No. 6, which, when completed, will make the river navi-
SCENE ON THE KENTUCKY RIVER.
gable to High Bridge, the crossing of the Cincinnati Southern Railroad, about one hundred and twelve miles from its mouth. The value of this improvement, and the restoration of navigation to the region of country through which the river runs, can not be overestimated. In the single item of coal its cost has been more than saved to consumers, the price at Frankfort being reduced from twenty-five and thirty cents to ten and fifteen cents. So also as to freights of all kinds, the cheaper river transportation has led to corresponding reduction of rates by rail to Louisville and Cincinnati, the decrease being about fifty per cent. In like manner the value of lands lying along the river has been enhanced, the facility thus afforded for reaching market having stimulated the opening of new farms, and led to the restoration of many others which had gone to decay from the lack of means to utilize or sell their products. This improvement, affording free navigation, has been highly beneficial not only to the people who have had a market opened to them, but also to Louisville and Cincinnati, to which points the products of this rich section have been shipped, and whence the merchandise, groceries, coal, etc., have heen distributed. The result of the past five years goes far to illustrate the vast benefit which would accrue upon the completion of slack-water navigation to the Three Forks, and should call for some more vigorous effort to induce Congress to hasten the progress of the work. Every remaining county to he embraced hy the new works is as rich and abounding in products needing an outlet to market as those already supplied, and they are as much entitled to the improvement. On the score of economy, it would be better for Congress, instead of making appropriations hy driblets, to set apart a sum sufficient to place all the remaining locks and dams under con- tract at once, and complete them in two or three years, instead of making a lock and dam every year or two, extending the time for the completion of the navigation ten or fifteen years, and suffering losses from floods, etc., from the incom- pleted state arising from lack of adequate appropriations.
The full value of the system will not be demonstrated until navigation is extended to the Three Forks and it can be utilized as are the Monongahela and Kanawha rivers, similarly improved by the United States Government, for the trans- portation of coal, iron, timber, and other products of the mountains. Pending this completion, and to facilitate this transportation meanwhile, Congress, some years since, made an appropriation of $125,000 or thereabouts, for the con- struction of a dam on the French system at the Three Forks. It was located at Beattyville, just below the confluence of the South Fork, and completed one year ago. No lock was provided, but in its stead provision was made for letting down abont one-third of the dam so as to permit the passage of rafts, etc., through chutes or passes. But apart from the questionable policy of having any device which will permit the products of a country to leave it without providing
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