USA > Texas > Cherokee County > A history of Cherokee county (Texas) > Part 8
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At last effort was rewarded. At a total cost of $47,433.55 the Rusk-Jacksonville section of the road was ready to operate. Leav- ing Jacksonville at 5 p. m., April 29, 1875, the Cherokee made its maiden trip. Two and one-half hours later pandemonium broke loose at the Rusk terminal.1
1The terminal was on Highway No. 22, about one-half mile from the court- house square.
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IMPROVED TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES
Regular trips, with John T. Wiggins as conductor, began May 24, 1875, and President Davis concluded his annual report as follows :
"This is the second effort you have made to secure to your community the means of transportation and direct communication with the arteries of trade and the cities of commerce. Your first effort was by building the I. and G. N. Railroad. ... To it you gave one of your best citizens. You sent him abroad. You stretched out your hand for help. The help was found but the hand that took hold of you crushed you with your own enterprise. But in this your second enterprise you have relied upon yourselves. . . . At last your Cherokee, with glowing furnace and flying wheels, speeds its way over your own railroad. ... we rejoice over the deliverance from the grave in which the I. and G. N. buried us. The old hulk that was foundering has been righted up, the leaks have been corked and, with steady helm and full-bent sail, she is riding into port. Your town is safe."
The directors, however, foresaw the danger of being content with a wooden track. In the second annual stockholders' meeting they urged the replacement of the pine rails with twenty-five pound iron rails and the substitution of a narrow-gauge railway passenger car for the street railway coach. As the most feasible way of financing these improvements they suggested a sale of bonds. No action was taken and the predicted trouble was not long in coming.
By August 2 the condition of the track was so bad that traffic had to be discontinued until it could be repaired. Debts continued to accumulate. On September 22, 1875, officials leased the tram and rolling stock to James A. Ross and John T. Wiggins. These gentlemen, however, were handicapped by the same difficulties and the company realized no profit from the transaction. No wonder the committee appointed to write the centennial history of Chero- kee County in 1876 voiced the following sentiment : "We cannot but believe we would be happier and more prosperous if there were not a railroad west of the Mississippi."
By the third annual stockholders' meeting it had become ap- parent that the enterprise could not succeed unless iron could be substituted for the wooden rails. Iron rails, however, meant the investment of more capital and capitalists had no faith in the project. The roadbed and rolling stock had no attraction as security. As a last resort the company decided to transfer its claims to parties able to iron the road, provided such persons could be induced to accept the property and pay the indebtedness. Con-
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A HISTORY OF CHEROKEE COUNTY
tinued efforts were unsuccessful and in January, 1879, the tram was sold at auction. F. W. Bonner, E. L. Gregg, G. D. Neely, J. J. Mallard, C. C. Francis, J. T. Wiggins, S. B. Barron and John B. Reagan bought it for $90.50. While the track was usable, the road was leased and the flat cars, drawn by mules, were used to haul lumber to Jacksonville and building materials to the penitentiary.
Thus passed the Rusk tramway. Rusk of today laughs at the venture. Yet brief as was its span, both in mileage and in years, the road played no insignificant part in the town's development. In addition to affording the first rail communication with the world, it helped to bring the Cotton Belt to Rusk. Appearing be- fore the penitentiary locating commission, Doctor C. C. Francis, then state senator, used this connection with the I. and G. N., to- gether with the work done by the Chappel Hill Manufacturing Company and the Cherokee Furnace Company iron plants, as forceful argument in favor of the Cherokee location of the state's iron plant.
Looking backward, one sees the situation more clearly perhaps than its promoters could see it. Had the tram officials decided to intersect the I. and G. N. three miles east of Jacksonville instead of at Jacksonville, the county's development might have pursued a different course. According to some of the men conversant with the situation at the time, the Texas and New Orleans Railroad would probably have followed a different route, ironed the tram roadbed and built its main line through the county seat.
COTTON BELT
The Kansas and Gulf Short Line Railroad Company, incor- porated by W. S. Herndon and associates in 1880, afforded the Cherokee county seat its first ironed road. The Tyler-Rusk di- vision was completed December 18, 1882. This was soon after- ward extended through Alto and opened to Lufkin, July 1, 1885. In 1887 it passed into the hands of the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Railway Company. On January 13, 1891, the property was sold to the Tyler Southeastern Railway Company. Eight years later it passed into the hands of the St. Louis Southwestern Rail- road Company of Texas, popularly known as the Cotton Belt.
In 1895 the narrow-gauge track was converted into a standard road. Sufficient convicts were put to work to effect the entire change from Tyler to Lufkin in one Sunday.
STATE RAILROAD
The State Railroad was begun in the late '80s to connect
IMPROVED TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES 75
the Rusk prison with the convict camps near the Neches River. In 1907, as a result of strenuous effort on the part of Rusk and Palestine citizens, the legislature ordered the extension of the line on the ground that the state needed the road to develop its timber interests. In September, 1909, the first regular passenger train ran from Rusk to Palestine. It did not prove a financial suc- cess and in 1921 the Southern Pacific lines acquired a five-year lease on the road, renewed in 1926.
TEXAS AND NEW ORLEANS
In 1902, partially attracted by the possibilities of the fruit in- dustry, the Texas and New Orleans Railroad Company built its main line through the Jacksonville territory. Five years later the legislature required the construction of the Rusk-Gallatin branch line. The insertion of this clause in the bill permitting the con- solidation of the T. and N. O. with the old Texas Trunk was largely due to the effort of the Cherokee County representative, Frank B. Guinn. On Sunday, May 2, 1909, the first regular passenger train pulled out of Rusk with eighty-five passengers. In recent years good highways and trucks have practically de- stroyed both its freight and passenger business.
TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONES
Although not classified as transportation facilities, the telegraph and telephone systems have proved such valuable assets to shippers they are given recognition in this chapter.
The first telegraph line through Cherokee County was built in the early '50s along the stage route from Henderson. In many places the wire was simply fastened to a tree. Naturally "such a new-fangled affair" provoked curiosity and aroused skepticism.
"You can't fool me," boasted one wise citizen, "Anybody could reach up and get the paper off that wire."
Some old-timers best remember this early telegraph service by the report of General Robert E. Lee's surrender. At first the only thing made public was the fact that sad news had come. Tensely people waited. Three days later the message was released.
In January, 1880, the Western Union Telegraph Company established service between Rusk and Jacksonville.
The East Texas Telephone Company built a line in Cherokee County in the late '90s, service being first limited to long distance calls. George A. Vining began to experiment with local connec- tions at the county seat by putting a telephone in his own residence and another in the residence of his business partner. The store
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A HISTORY OF CHEROKEE COUNTY
served as "central." Soon the number was increased to eight; Rusk had a telephone system. During the first two years of the present century the commissioners court authorized the construc- tion of a number of lines connecting different Cherokee towns. In July, 1901, telephones were installed in the courthouse.
AUTOMOBILES
A. O. Kehm, an official at the penitentiary, is credited with bringing the first automobile to Cherokee County, about 1905. Doctor J. M. Brittain was the owner of the second car, a second- hand five-passenger machine for which he paid $1,800 in March, 1909, the obligation being met in land. When the "Red Rambler," with its driver, arrived by train most of Jacksonville was present to see the first run. Much to the chagrin of its new owner, it stalled in the sand before reaching the business section. By January, 1910, Jacksonville boasted three cars. In 1912 the pur- chase of a new car, or an automobile trip, was still front page news. In October, 1912, the Banner reported four machines "started on the perilous trip to Dallas-S. Z. Alexander, H. P. Tilley, Doctor W. B. Stokes and M. P. Alexander-via Palestine, Corsicana and Waxahachie. When only a short distance beyond Gum Creek, M. P. Alexander's car was disabled by breaking a rear axle. The other three cars were two days making the hazard- ous trip." By 1913 the county had over one hundred cars. A decade later the number had increased to twenty-five hundred. During the first eight months of 1934, according to statistics in the tax col- lector's office, 6,207 automobiles were registered. Of this number 4,520 were passenger cars, 846 commercial and 841 farm trucks.
HIGHWAYS
In 1893 a county newspaper proclaimed "Cherokee's need is better wagon roads." Twenty years later, when automobiles were coming on the scene, the same crying need existed. By this time, however, continued editorial pleas, reinforced by community mass meetings, began to produce results. The governor's "Good Road Days," November 5-6, 1913, found Cherokee stores closed. Mer- chants and farmers, side by side, labored for their mutual bene- fit. The Cherokee road building program was under way.
The first road bond issue was voted by Road District No. 1 (Jacksonville), October 21, 1916, for $250,000. The next warrant issue was by the county as a whole for $200,000 to construct the Jim Hogg and Roger Q. Mills Highways. In 1919 Road District No. 2 (Rusk), voted a $350,000 bond issue. Later Road District
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IMPROVED TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES
No. 3 (Alto), voted $300,000 and Road District No. 4 (Mt. Sel- man), $125,000 bonds.
The first hard-surfaced road was the Tyler highway into Jack- sonville. This was followed by the Jacksonville-Palestine road. Next the Jim Hogg Highway was rebuilt and hard-surfaced. The present decade has witnessed the hard-surfacing of the Jackson- ville-Frankston, Jacksonville-Henderson and the new Jacksonville- Rusk highways.
CHAPTER VIII
DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES-IRON
NO IRON was taken from Cherokee's red, ore-encrusted hills for nearly two decades after the Civil War plants were closed. Then the state went into the iron business at Rusk.
STATE DEVELOPMENT
In 1875 Governor Richard Coke, acting under legislative in- structions, appointed five commissioners, including the late Cap- tain E. L. Gregg, of Rusk, to locate a branch penitentiary north- east of the Trinity River which should use convict labor in making iron. Employing an iron ore expert and visiting every locality containing iron in any appreciable quantity, these com- missioners decided that Rusk had the maximum amount of easily mined ore.
The penitentiary was established and the "Old Alcalde," a twenty-five-ton charcoal furnace, was put into blast in February, 1884. After many ups and downs the state made its last run some twenty-five years later. Had the penitentiary system's head- quarters been in the iron belt and its chief officials as interested in iron as in farming, the history of its iron venture would doubt- less have been far different. But to most of its ever-changing, non-resident officials the iron business was a mystery in the be- ginning and remained a mystery to the end. Otherwise many a colorful crisis might have been averted.
According to the late F. B. Guinn,1 the "Old Alcalde" was too small and antiquated to have been the main support of eight hundred or a thousand convicts, even if there had been a con- siderable streak of gold in the output and it had operated at full capacity at all times. As a matter of fact, it operated about one- third of the time and then often in a small way. Yet always, the Guinn report continues, it was charged with the maintenance of the entire Rusk prison population, many of whom were incapaci-
1Mr. Guinn knew the story of the iron industry as chairman of the committee on penitentiaries during two terms in the legislature and as assistant financial agent of the penitentiaries, with direct supervision of the Rusk iron plant.
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DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES
tated for work. Since the branch penitentiary had been established to make iron, all losses were charged to the iron industry, regard- less of whether they had been incurred for the care of invalids, by deficits in other prison industries, by improvements and repairs in the plant, by idleness or by actual running loss.
What percentage of this was properly chargeable will probably never be known, but it seems that non-operation, rather than operation, was the root of the iron troubles.
In 1904 the "Old Alcalde" was replaced by the "Sam Lanham," a fifty-ton coke furnace. A cast-iron pipe plant with a daily ca- pacity of over thirty tons and a machine shop were added. During the Campbell administration a $28,000 power plant was a part of further new equipment.
Sadirons, andirons and sashweights were manufactured. Ac- cording to the Cherokee Herald, September 4, 1889, the iron frame of the massive dome of the State Capitol was cast and framed at the Rusk plant.
Under the able direction of John L. Wortham as financial agent these industries were so successfully operated during the Lanham administration that the $150,000 appropriated for their use by the 28th Legislature was returned to the treasury. During the boom days just prior to the panic of 1907 it was not a question of making sales but of getting cars in which to make shipments, the lack of adequate railroad facilities being one of the great drawbacks, not only in shipping out products but in obtaining the supplies of coke and limestone essential to operation.
In October, however, the panic brought business to a standstill and the plant was shut down. Reopened in 1908, it was rapidly recovering until apparently unfair burdens and discriminations again brought trouble. Concerning the situation in 1908, F. B. Guinn made the following report :
"We were getting along nicely and paying our debts rapidly. Suddenly, without previous warning, the men were again ordered away to the farms. With about thirty-five men, whom we per- suaded the superintendent to leave us, and some one-armed and one-legged men picked up about the prison, we tried to fill orders for pipe. In a short time even these were ordered to work on the State railroad and all iron work stopped. To make bad matters worse, a crew from the railroad force tore up the ore bed track to get rails to build a tram into the timber supplying the State sawmill.
"The next year we got a loan of $100,000, rebuilt the ore track, invested in some new equipment necessary to economical opera-
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A HISTORY OF CHEROKEE COUNTY
tion and started to fill contracts. Ten days later the furnace showed a hot spot and we shut down to reline it. At this inauspicious moment the financial agent paid us a visit. In a day or two, the Chairman of the Penitentiary Board wired us not to reline, despite the fact that we had on the ground not only the brick for relining but $20,000 worth of coke and limestone. In addition, there were 10,000 tons of mixed ore and $40,000 in contracts for iron pipe on the books."
Soon afterward the Board closed the plant indefinitely. Thus ended the third effort to operate the blast furnace during the Campbell administration. According to official verdict at Austin the business had proved a losing proposition.
During the following years of inactivity the machinery de- teriorated and offered no attraction to investors until the World War gave rise to an abnormal demand for steel and iron. The property was then sold to L. P. Featherstone and associates of Beaumont. These purchasers, known as the Texas Steel Company, incurred great expense in making repairs necessary to putting the furnace into blast. Soon after the plant was reopened financial difficulties led to what proved the final shutdown. Their obliga- tions were not met and in 1929, by court decision, the title re- verted to the state.
First and last the state invested some $500,000 in the project. After all these expenditures, however, it was pronounced a losing proposition and abandoned. For years a gaunt skeleton with blackened furnace and rusted girders towered over desolate patches of weed-edged slag and unused ore. In 1931 the buildings were razed and the site converted into a park for the Rusk State Hos- pital, which had been established on the penitentiary grounds in September, 1919.2
Although the public, for the most part, accepted the official verdict that the tremendous losses of money necessitated the clos- ing of the penitentiary plant, the possibility of Cherokee iron de- velopment is still an open question. The so-called losses which figured so prominently in the heated discussions of that day were apparently not inherent in the iron industry.
NEW BIRMINGHAM
The next act in the drama of East Texas iron has its setting two miles east of Rusk in New Birmingham, famous boom city of
^In 1934 the Rusk State Hospital has thirty buildings, 2,212 inmates and 254 employees, including the official staff. The plant is valued at $1,437,854. Doctor William Thomas is superintendent.
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DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES
the iron rush of the late '80s and the early '90s, carved out of forest and heralded as the "Iron Queen of the Southwest." Colorful tales from the lips of those who knew it in its heyday reveal the romance and the splendor of its meteoric career.
Alexander B. Blevins, of Alabama, came to Cherokee County to sell sewing machines. Driving through its rich ore districts, he visioned a second Birmingham. Fired by his enthusiasm, his brother-in-law, W. H. Hammon, a wealthy Calvert attorney,8 furnished the capital for acquiring thousands of acres of land options. Blevins then went East and enlisted a group of New Yorkers in the project. The result was the formation of the Cherokee Land and Iron Company, chartered in March, 1888, with a capital stock of one million dollars. H. H. Wibirt, of New York, was president; Richard L. Coleman, of St. Louis, vice- president. Captain E. L. Gregg and A. B. Blevins were the only Texas men on its first board of directors. The new company pur- chased some twenty thousand acres of selected iron, mineral and timber land scattered over the county and planned the city of New Birmingham which was to be the center of its iron industries.
In the minds of its promoters, the success of the new city was certain. Despite the handicaps under which it had operated, the penitentiary furnace had demonstrated the possibilities of Chero- kee iron ore. Furthermore, there was no large city near enough to interfere with trade and the nearest competitive point was more than five hundred miles away. The Cotton Belt had purchased the Kansas and Gulf Short Line through Rusk and the Southern Pacific was contemplating an extension to New Orleans, which would probably bring it through the iron district. No transporta- tion problem was in the offing. Vast East Texas charcoal-produc- ing forests and lignite beds were considered adequate sources of fuel. In addition to these essentials for the founding of an iron city, natural conditions made possible diversified manufacturing industries employing skilled laborers. Such a population would assure stability and community prosperity. In the opinion of the promoters, every factor in the situation had been carefully weighed and the venture was destined to succeed.
On October 12, 1888, the first lot was sold. A year later, quot- ing the New Birmingham Times, New Birmingham was a city of some two thousand inhabitants with graded streets, a street rail- way, parks and drives, electric lights, a brick business district, the
3Hammon was once known as the most brilliant lawyer in Central Texas. Until he joined the Greenback party and ran for Governor on the Greenback ticket he was in line for high political office.
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A HISTORY OF CHEROKEE COUNTY
handsomest depot in the state for its size, schools and churches, telegraph and express service, and a palatial hotel.
The Southern Hotel, which the promoting company erected at a cost of more than $60,000, was the center of New Birmingham's gay life. Its first register,4 beginning March 28, 1889, and closing February 9, 1890, records guests from twenty-eight states, in- cluding Jay Gould of railroad fame, and Grover Cleveland, re- cently come from the presidential chair. Robert A. Van Wyck, H. H. Wibirt, James A. Mahoney and other New York financiers who had risked their millions in the attempted development of Cherokee County's iron ore were frequently registered. Along with the millionaires were citizens from near-by towns come for thrill as well as business, and newspaper representatives sent for copy. On one day there were guests from eight states. Many a royal dinner and dance were staged in the Southern's great dining- hall, finished with curly pine. Even English lords sat at its tables.
In September, 1889, New Birmingham was incorporated. Joe D. Baker, land agent for the New Birmingham Iron and Land Company,5 was elected mayor. The New Birmingham Times covered news in metropolitan style. When its first editor, Charles A. Edwards, went to Washington, D. C., to represent the St. Louis Republic, General John M. Claiborne became editor. On the Times staff were Sam Houston, Jr., Dick Collier, later of the Kansas City Star, and George McDonald, later publisher of the Austin Tribune. Brigman C. Odom, afterward a teacher in the Dallas Schools, was the principal of the New Birmingham schools. Reverend Thomas Ward White, of Virginia, father of Dabney White, widely known East Texan of today, was pastor of the Presbyterian Church. Dr. Edwin E. Slosson, spending his vacations with his parents in New Birmingham, gathered ma- terial for the chapters on iron ores in his celebrated work, "Creative Chemistry."
New Birmingham promoters, however, soon discovered that the East was opposed to any iron development in the South and West because of interference with markets for its own iron products. The New Yorkers then went to London in search of
4This register has a colorful story. Left among the debris in the deserted hotel office, it was unearthed by the grandchildren of E. C. Dickinson, a promi- nent New Birmingham attorney. Years later, as a result of much borrowing, it was lost. Rescued from a trash pile by Miss Jessie Boone of Rusk, it was restored to the original finders. When the oil boom of 1934 again put the spot- light on New Birmingham, the old register was news copy.
5'This company had purchased the holdings of the Cherokee Land and Iron Company, April 10, 1889.
SOUTHERN HOTEL TASSIE BELLE FURNACE, New Birmingham
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DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES
additional capital. A syndicate of Englishmen came to investigate the proposition.
To fully understand the English reaction to the New Birming- ham venture it should be remembered that, according to the English view, charcoal was essential to the manufacture of good iron. Seeing the vast virgin forests of East Texas with their promise of an inexhaustible supply of this fuel, they agreed to invest a million dollars in the New Birmingham Iron and Land Company and five million in development projects for converting pig iron into finished products.
Here the trouble began. The attorneys for the English financiers warned their clients that the Alien Land Law, recently passed by the legislature, would bar them from acquiring any interest in the property. In the hope of securing such modification of the dis- turbing law as would enable them to proceed with development plans, the New Yorkers invited Governor James Stephen Hogg and his officials to meet the Englishmen at a banquet at the Southern Hotel. The governor, however, continued to discourage the foreign investors and failure to secure their millions probably sounded the death knell of New Birmingham.7
But the pending disaster was not yet generally apparent. In October, 1891, the New Birmingham Iron and Improvement Company, chartered July 13, 1891, as the successor to the New Birmingham Iron and Land Company, made the following report on New Birmingham industries, which further reveals the mag- nificent scale on which this mushroom city was built:
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