The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XV THE FOUNDING OF A GREAT WORKSHOP TOWN, 1869-1872 Events of South and North Railroad. "On to Nashville!" Frank Gilmer again at the front. Carpet Bag legislature in control. Submersion of State enterprises. Crisis in railroad history. Construction work on South and North begun. "Build that road cheap." John T. Milner's vision of a city in Jones Valley. Options taken up. Agreement with John C. Stanton, president of Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad. Treachery of Stanton. Baylis Grace brings news. A great game afoot, "but the end is not yet," says Colonel Milner. Suspense of the moment. Josiah Morris takes up options for site of Milner's city. Organization of Elyton Land Company; articles of incorporation; election of James R. Powell as president. Naming of the new town. Biographical sketch of Colonel Powell. "His nose told on him ... he'd fight a legion of devils." Days of the pony express in Alabama. Pioneer transportation methods. Preliminaries for laying out of Elyton Land Company's city. Reminiscences of Henry W. Milner. Colonel Powell's enterprise. Captain Charles Linn one of pioneer investors. First bank estabhshed. "Linn's Follr" Association of Tennessee Company property with old sea captain s ventures. Major Willis Milner appointed officer in Elyton Land Company. Giles Edwards passes through Jones Valley. The city in the corn fields. How" the old co'thouse" was wrested from Elyton. Sketch of Robert H. Henley, first mayor of city. Colonel Powell's startling methods. Building of the Old Relay House. Introduction B. F. Roden, R. H. Pearson, and Frank P. O'Bnen. T o take up again the thread of the South and North Railroad history, broken for the time by war and all its sorrows, it is seen that it now becomes closely knit and interwoven with every circumstance and incident of Jefferson County. And very soon, indeed, the biggest piece of business which has yet been chronicled in these pages comes to pass. It seems that the first legislature convening after the war, passed a State aid law, the main object of which was the building up of the mineral interests of Alabama. Colonel Gilmer came at once to the rescue of the South and North Railroad. "His millions were gone," says Milner, "and Frank Gilmer was a poor man, but before the hot embers of his grand conception in Jefferson County had cooled, men were at work securing and saving what was left. Collecting his scattered forces and unfurling his standard with his watchward 'On to Nashville,' Frank 216 THE STORY OF COAL AND IRON IN ALABAMA Gilmer again began the work of reconstruction. Though our strong men had gone to the wall, and our stockholders could not pay, a few of us kept our chartered interest alive." The first foothold was thus kept. But when the reconstruction laws of the Federal Congress were passed, in February, 1867, the ground became quicksand. The Carpet Bag legislature appeared at the capitol at Montgomery , in June, 1868, and John C. Stanton, of Boston, with it.« Stanton was a hard-looking Scotchy fellow," observed Kevin St. Michael Cunningham, "a red-heRded, hustling rascal." According to Milner this Stanton controlled the legislature in so far as railroad affairs were concerned, "as if he owned every member, body and soul. He secured the gift of all that had been done by our people in grading the road from Meridian to Chattanooga. He wanted more and he got it from thE' legislature." Frank Gilmer and his associates went under. Stanton and his crowd were on top. "Noone knew what would come next," says Milner. "The blight was on everything except the BOuls of our people, and the soil we lived on." John Whiting, a Montgomery cotton factor, was made president of the South and North Railroad, displacing Gilmer. "I was still the engineer, so called," said Milner. "The Central had a mortgage on the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad, but it was in the name of the State. I soon saw that Stanton, by a single wave of his hand, could do away with that mortgage, and all others, of which we were the beneficiaries, under the Act of 1859-60. I told Mr. Whiting he had better watch these matters of legislation. He spurned the idea of getting among these Yankees at all, much less of paying them for their votes, but he said I might do so if I felt like it. I had then been engaged in the work of building...