xt7m639k439g https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7m639k439g/data/mets.xml State Industrial and Commercial Conference (1887 Oct. 4-6 : Louisville, Ky.) 1887  books b92-32-26573256 English Capital Book and Job Printing Co., : Frankfort, Ky. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Natural resources Kentucky. Kentucky resources : Kentucky towns & counties : being reports of their growth, natural resources and industrial improvement made to the State Industrial and Commercial Conference at Louisville, October 4th, 5th, and 6th, 1887. text Kentucky resources : Kentucky towns & counties : being reports of their growth, natural resources and industrial improvement made to the State Industrial and Commercial Conference at Louisville, October 4th, 5th, and 6th, 1887. 1887 2002 true xt7m639k439g section xt7m639k439g 





       KENTUCKY RESOURCES.










KENTUCKY TOWNS g COUNTIES.









   BEING REPORTS OF THEIR GRvOWTH, NATURAL RE-
      SOU'10ES AND INDUSTRIAL IMPROVEMENT.
         MADE TO TIHE STATIC INDUSTRIAL
            AND COMMERCIAL CONFER-
                   ENCE AT




   LOUISVILLE, OCTOBER 4th, 5th and 6th, 1887.










                FRANKFORT. KY.:
           CAPITAL BOOK AND JOB PRINTING CO.
                     1887.

 This page in the original text is blank.


 










REPORTS FROM COUNTIES.



DETAILED PAPERS ON THE RESOURCES OF PARTICULAR COUN-
                           TIES.
                     ALLEN COUNTY.
  Allen county is situated on the Kentucky and Tennessee
State line. Scottville, the county seat, is a flourishing town
of about 600 to 1,000 inhabitants, is twenty-five miles south-
east of Bowling Green, Ky., twenty-five miles west of Glas-
gow, Ky., and sixty miles north-east of Nashville, Tenn., and
was established in 1815. It is located in the center of the
county, which is nearly square, being about twenty miles
wide and twenty-three miles long The Chesapeake  ,Nash-
ville Railroad, which is now completed to Scottville from
Gallatin, runs through the center of the county, north and
south, while Batren river is the boundary line on the north
and east. Several good sized streams traverse the county.
  The county abounds in fresh forests of fine timber, consist-
ing principally of the hard woods, such as beech, white oak,
hickory, walnut, ash, black maple or sugar tree, poplar, sweet
gum and chestnut. We have thousands of acres of valuable
timber which, in the development of the various resources
of the county, will find a ready market at remunerative
prices, and, as the railroad will be in operation in a very
short time, parties desiring to locate planing mills, saw mills,
stave, spoke or axe-handle factories, should come at once.
  Allen county is naturally adapted for fruit-growing, being on
a line between the extremes of cold and heat.  The apple,
peach, plum, pear, and grape all flourish here. The wild plum
and grape grow in abundance, showing the adaptability of the
climate. As easy transportation is now assured, this section is
destined to become a fruit-growing center.
  The people of Allen county are almost exclusively engaged

 


                              4

in farming-corn is the leading staple. Wheat grows well
here, but has not been largely cultivated for market; dark
tobacco is raised extensively, and has proved a paying business,
and, as transportation by rail is now assured, the culture will
be increased. Vegetables of all kinds flourish here. We have
earlier vegetables than other parts of the State, on account of
our southern location, and the mildness of the climate affords
them late in the season. While the soil on some of our up-
lands is not as strong as the fertile plains of the far West, yet
a great deal of the bottom lands along our creeks and rivers is
remarkably fertile, and we boast that we can ra:ise as great a
variety of crops as any section on the globe.
  Stock-raising in Allen county has already assumed great ac-
tivity and prominence. and much interest is felt in rearing
horses, mules, cattle, sheep, and hogs, and the character and
quality of the stock has been much improved. As all kinds of
grasses grow here luxuriantly, our stock can have grass nearly
the year round, and, being well supplied with pure, running
water, our stock is free from disease Hog-raising has been
attended with great success, sornettmes becoming fat enough
for use from eating the mast alone.
  Some years since it was discovered that heavy lubricating
coal oil existed in several parts of the county in great abun-
dance, but for the lack of transportation the work was aban-
doned; but with a great trunk line railroad, such as the
Chesapeake and Nashville, running through our county, this
business will again come to the front and prove a profitable
investment for capital.
  Allen county can boast of as fine water power as any part
of the country. Barren river, a stream of considerable vol-
ume, courses along its eastern boundary, while Long creek, a
good-sized stream, with its banks lined with the finest of tim-
ber, runs through the county. Besides these, Big Trammel,
Little Trammel, Bays Fork and Middle Fork, all streams that
might be utilized in operating saw mills. Fine timber and
stone are being found along all these streams, so that mills
can be established at little expense.
  There is a salt well within about seven miles on Scottville

 




that formerly supplied a large area of country with a superior
quality of salt, which has not recently been worked.
  There is a fine sulphur spring about live miles from Scott-
ville, at which point a hotel is now in process of erection.
  There is an inexhaustible supply of clay for making brick
near the county site, also the finest clay for potter's work, of
light color.
                        THE PEOPLE.
  The people, as a rule, are honest, sober and industrious, and
all who come to Allen county meet a kind reception. There is
not a saloon in the county, and the consequence is that our
jail is empty nearly half the time. We have no politicians or
tramps. The laws are strictly enforced, the people and their
rights are protected, and universal peace and good order pre
vail.
  Persons desiring information may address J. W. Ham, E. (-T.
Walker, E. Scott Brown, A. M. Alexander, Dr. W. R. Shapard,
Scottville, Kentucky.

                       BATH COUNTY.
  The county of Bath is bounded on the north and east by
the Licking river for 40 miles. It has an area of 400 square
miles, about equally divided, the northern and western p)or-
tion blue grass lands, and the eastern and southern poor lands.
Population 12.000.
  The good lands, like all Kentucky blue grass, produces all
the cereals and Burley tobacco; and Bath is an average county
with the blue grass counties, but in corn ranks among the
very first in the State. The southern and eastern half has
timber and iron ore, but is not productive, except on the Lick-
ing river bottoms, which are about equal to any lands for the
cereals.
  Owingsville, the county seat, near the center of the county,
has a population of about 1,000, is 130 miles from Cincinnati,
and 140 miles from Louisville, and is on the dividing line be-
tween the poor and rich lands, and near Slate creek, which
runs through the county for 20 miles, and is a confluent of
the Licking.
  ,,  2.---T.  C.

 

6



  The iron belt lies south and east of Slate Creek, and covers
about one-half of the county. The old Slate ore banks, perhaps
the largest deposit of iron ore in the Ohio valley, lies in this
section and in sight of the county seat. The furnace has not
been in blast for about fifty years, but the bank is now under
lease to a Boston company, who take daily thirty car-loads of
the ore to Ashland, Kentucky, by the Chesapeake and Ohio
Railroad, on contract with the furnaces there.
  There are two kinds of the ore, oxide of iron and blue ore.
Two other furnaces, the Caney and Clear Creek, are in this
region, neither now in blast. The ore from which car-wheel
iron is made is near the Clear Creek mines.
  The only vein of coal in Bath is about twenty inches thick,
but difficult to mine, and is not worked. It is bituminous.
Bath has fine timber. The county is pretty well checkered by
turnpikes, made principally by a road order, by which the
county court pays 750 per mile in aid of them (and 1,250
and 1,800 respectively); and two roads are now being built
from Owingsville, south and east, to the county line. Toll is
collected on all.
  The Lexington and Big Sandy Railroad, now leased to the
Newport News and Mississippi Valley Railroad, passes for
twenty-two miles through the southern part of Bath where
the iron ore lies, and four and one-half miles south of county
seat. On the 4th of November next the county votes on a
subscription of 150,000 to the Paris, Georgetown and Frank-
fort Railroad Company. This road, it is contemplated, will
pass for thirty miles through the centre of Bath, thence up
Licking to the timber and coal fields on the upper Licking and
Big Sandy, to connect with the Virginia system of railroads.
  Bath, for all the cereals, vegetables, horses, mules, hogs and
sheep, will compare with any of the counties. It produces
about three hundred hogsheads of Burley tobacco, the most
of which is sold in Louisville; a little goes to Richmond, Va.,
some to Baltimore, Md., and the balance to Cincinnati.
  Bath produces cattle in which she will not lose in compari-
son with any county in the State. Bath has the largest, if not
the finest, herd of Short-horns in the Mississippi Valley.
  The subseription was voted by a majority of nearly one thousand:

 



7



  Bath needs flouring mills, and will have them.
  In the southern and eastern portion, and near the Newport
News and Mississippi Valley Railroal, there are sulphur
springs-salt sulphur and chalybeate.
                                         B. D. LACY,
                                 Fdor the Bath Delegation.

                     BELL COUNTY.
  This county was the one hundred and'twelfth in order of
formation; was organized in May, 1867, and is bounded north
by Clay county, east by Harlan, south by Lee county, Vir-
ginia, and Claiborne county, Tennessee, and west by Whitley
and Knox counties, Kentucky.
  The county is very mountainous. The river and creek bot-
toms, the coves, and north side of the mountains, afford very
rich and productive soils. The finest cereals are produced in
these lands. The soil on the ridges and south side of the
mountains is very thin. The products of the county are corn,
wheat, rye, oats, and small quantities of tobacco. The cotnty
abounds in timber of all kinds. Here can be seen the forest
in its virgin state. The kinds of timber most abund ant are
white oak, black oak, poplar, sugar tree, maple, black wal-
nut, white walnut, beech, linn, sycamore, dogwood, elm,
chestnut, and chestnut oak. On the south side or Pine Mount-
ain large quantities of yellow and black pine are found.
Within the last year or two large quantities of the poplar
and walnut timber have been cut and floated off down the
Cumberland river, to Williamsburg, where large mills have
been erected, and there it has been sawed and shipped to
various parts of the United States. The lumber mnade from
this timber is pronounced by experts to be of the very finest
quality.
  The mountains afford good grazing for cattle and sheep.
They do well without feeding all winter, subsisting on the
wild grasses, herbs, and acorns. Hogs nearly always become
fattened on the mast.
  Bell county is watered by Cumberland river and by small
streams emptying into it. A few of the creeks which empty
into the Cumberland river, and afford ample water for float-

 


8



ing purposes, are Yellow, Clear, Straight, Greasy, Turkey,
Harrison, Four-mile, Browning's and others.
   This county is also noted for its inexhaustible supply of
 the different kinds of stone-coal. The veins are in every hill,
 and range in thickness from eighteen inches up to fourteen
 feet. This fourteen-foot vein of coal is on Hignit's creek, a
 branch of Yellow, and the lower half is said to be equal to
 any coking coal in existence. In the same locality is found
 cannel coal, one vein of which is four feet thick. A number
 of other veins range all the way down to twenty-four inches
 in thickness. Six or seven different veins of coal have been
 found in one mountain.
 From the Geological Survey of Kentucky, " Chemical Anal-
 ysis A.," by Robert Peter. M. D., made in 1875, page 206,
 we take the following, which may be of interest here:
 "These coals are all good, and some of them would rank
 among the very best, and might be made available in the
 smelting of some ores without the preliminary process of
 coking, like the so-called 'Block Coal' of Indiana, which
 they resemble. The proportion of sulphur, it will be seen, is
 generally sufficiently low, but varies in the different samples
 from 42 per cent. in No. 1671 up to 2672 in No. 1674. It must
 be understood that these proportions given in the table rep-
 resent the total sulphur of the coals, in whatever form it
 may exist in them, and that in the practical use of the
 coal for smelting or manufacturing purposes a considerable
 proportion of this total sulphur is removed in the prelimi-
 nary heating in the upper part of the furnace, or in the
 coking of the coals, or is in such a state of combination in
 them as to be harmless. As shown in Volume 1, New Series,
 of these Reports (page 287), some of this sulphur is in the
 fine or uncombined condition, especially in the fibrous coal
 or mineral charcoal, which is found between the laminw.
 "When in this state this injurious element is quite easily
 removable. Indeed, it is continually undergoing oxidation,
 when the coal is exposed to the air, even at the ordinary tem-
 perature, forming, with the atmospheric oxygen and moisture,
 sulphurous acid, which, being gaseous, is constantly escaping,
causing the well-known sulphurous odor of the coal mine or

 



9



coal heap, and enabling us to understand how it is that coals
gradually become less sulphurous on exposure to the air. 
    That portion of the sulphur of coals which is not
removed by the process of coking or preliminary heating is
either in combination with iron, as iron proto-sulphide, which
may injure the quality of the metal smelted with it, or it is
most probably in combination with calcium, magnesium, or
the alkaline metals, in which form it probably exerts little
or no injurious action.     Bell county is undoubtedly
endowed with great wealth of coal of -every good quality, as
well as of iron ores, etc., which only await development."
  Pine Mountain extends through the county from east to
west, and at its highest point is 1,330 feet above the sea level.
Cumberland river runs down the south side of the mountain
for a long distance, probably twenty or thirty miles, and cuts
through the mountain almost at right-angles. The cliffs on
either side of the river at this gap are nearly perpendicular,
and rise to the height of 1,100 or 1,200 feet. Pineville, the
county seat, is built in 'this gap; the spot is indeed a pic-
turesque one. The town contains about 250 or 300 inhabi-
tants.
  A company of Louisville gentlemen have recently purchased
a large body of land surrounding the north and west side of
town, and will have a new court-house and jail, fine hotel, and
banking house erected. An effort is also being made to build
a bridge across the river to the railroad, whic(h is now near
completion, to this point. The Cumberland Valley Branch of
the Louisville and Nashville Railroad has been under con-
struction for about one year, and will be completed within
the next few months as far as Pineville. The extension from
Pineville to Cumberland Gap has been let, and work will be
commenced soon. The tunnel through Cumberland Gap will
will be about thirty-three hundred feet, and will require con-
siderable time. When completed, this line will be a direct
route from Louisville to Knoxville, and to the South and East.
  Other railroads are projected through the county at various
points, and in the near future we hope to see a perfect net-
work of railroads through all parts of Eastern Kentucky. The
increase in population has been very rapid for a mountainous

 


10



c-unty so far from railroad communication. Since 1880, the
population has been more than doubled. Values of property
have increased more rapidly still. Land that sold from fifty
cents to two dollars per acre ten years ago are now selling al
the way from 10 to 430 per acre. A syndicate of English
gentlenen have purchased about one hundred thousand acres
of land in this county within the last twelve months, paying
on an average about 15 per acre for it. Their purchases have
beeii principally on Big and Little Yellow creeks, near Cumber-
land Gap. Other companies have bought land in other parts
of the county. There is plenty of room for capitalists yet,
and money invested in this county i sure to yield a handsome
profit.
  The citizens are principally native-born mountaineers, honest
and sociable. We have a few rough characters, and now and
then a "feud." A stranger is always treated kindly in the
mountains. To people who seek health, to persons who are
looking after wealth and seeking a place for profitable invest-
ment, we extend a cordial welcome.

                BOYD COUNTXY. - ASHLAND.
          BY JUDGES JOHN1 M. BuEKs AND HoN. J. F. HAGER.
  The town of Ashland is in Boyd county, on the Ohio river,
five miles north-west from the confluence of the Big Sandy
with the Ohio river. Population by census of 1870, 1,000;
census of 188o, 3,500; present population (semi-official census,
spring of 1887), 5,000.
  The town is the southern terminus of the Scioto Valley Rail-
way from Columbus, Ohio, cars being run through to a con-
nection here with the Newport News  Mississippi Valley
Company, by means of barge and steamboat transfer; also,
northern terminus of the Chattaroi Railroad, which extends
from Ashland south, by way of Catlettsburg, and thence up
the valley of the Big Sandy, a total distance of sixty miles;
also the terminus of the Ashland Coal and Iron Railway,
running from Ashland to Denton, Carter county, Kentuoky,
a distance of twenty miles; and of the Maysville  Big Sandy
Railroad, from its junction point with the Newport News 

 


11



Mississippi Valley Company, in Ashland, to Covington, Ken-
tucky, the new river route of the Chesapeake  Ohio system
to Cincinnati, rails being laid to Ashland 27th of September,
1887. Distance by river to Cincinnati is 146 miles; to Louis-
ville, 283 miles. -Western Union, Chesapeake  Ohio, and
Chattaroi telegraph lines; Adams Express Company; Ashland
National Bank, capital 350,000, surplus 60,000; established
public graded school, three commodious buildings, twelve
teachers. one thousand pupils ten churches, viz: Presbyte-
rian, Methodist Episcopal, Methodist Episcopal South, Baptist,
Episcopalian, Catholic, Lutheran, Christian, Colored Methodist,
Colored Baptist, and a newly established Collegiate Institute
for education in the higher academic courses of study.
  In 1854 a company w.s formed under the name of the Lex-
ington  Big Sandy Railroad Company, for the purpose of
constructing and operating a railroad from Lexington to the
Big Sandy river. In anticipation of its completion. an asso-
ciation of capitalists purchased the present site of Ashland-
then but farms-and issued bonds aggregating 200,000, in aid
of the railroad enterprise. The site selected possesses great
natural advantages, being upon a broad plateau sufficiently
undulating to afford good natural drainage, and having as
its entire front the finest deep-water harbor above Cincinnati.
The survey of the town provided beautiful streets and avenues,
those at right-angle from the river being eighty feet wide, and
those parallel to it being one hundrbd feet in width. The name
was given in honor of the home of Henry Clay, and to its
avenues were given the names of the towns and counties
through which it was proposed the road should ran.
  The advantages possessed by this newly located town, being
in the very center of the Hanging Rock. iron industries, in
close proximity to coal, iron ores, limestone, fire-clay, and a
large timber supply, were very soon recognized; so that
within three years from the first sale of lots in 1854, there
were established in Ashland two fire-brick factories, a factory
for the manufacture of oil from cannel coal.in retorts, a car-
riage factory, a saw and planing mill, a foundry and machine
shop, and brewery. Uere was also established the parent
Bank of Ashland, an institution which, by prudent, conserv-

 


12



ative management, maintained the highest credit in financial
circles, redeeming all notes of its issue in gold, a record yet
characterizing its successor, the Ashland National Bank, which
enjoys the highest position in the confidence of the business
world.
  The history of Ashland's growth is so intimately blended
with the affairs of the old Lexington  Big Sandy Railroad
Company, and its successor, that for a few years, at least,
they may be treated as one. The old company built but ten
miles of road, extending from Ashland in a south-westerly
direction. Then followed bankruptcy and ruin of its affairs.
This failure came in 1858, and was highly disastrous to the
town, and from which it had not recovered at the beginning
of the.civil war, and this added disaster caused an abandon-
ment of all manufacturing industries, and consequent stagna-
tion. The commodious brick hotel of live stories, erected by
the town company in 1855, served as a hospital for United
States troops during the war.
  At the close of the war, the Messrs. Means, Peebles, Butler,
and others, bought, at public sale, the-road and franchises of
the Eastern Division of the Lexington  Big Sandy Railroad,
and organized a new company, now known as the Ashland
Coal and Iron Railway Company. They bought large tracts
of mineral and timber lands, and extended their railroad to
them; they developed what is now known to the coal and
iron trade as Coalton coal TNo. 7), and began coal operations
on a large scale, employing 500 miners and maintaining an
average output of 4,000,000 bushels, consumed by the steam-
boat trade and shipped in barges to Cincinnati and points
below.
  In 1869, this company built at Ashland a blast furnace,
and introduced the Coalton coal as furnace fuel, not using a
pound of coke, and so successful was this innovation upon
the methods of iron production in the Hanging Rock iron
region (where reputation for iron was established upon char-
coal iron), that it has' been continued since with a record not
equalled by any furnace in the West. - The average production
of this furnace for eighteen years has been forty tons daily.
It was this success, more than any other cause, that led to the

 


13



organization of the Norton Iron Works, which followed in
1872, representing a capital of one million dollars.
  The A., C.  I. Railway Company represents an invested
capital of 1,500,000. In the mining department, employ-
ment is furnished 600 persons; in the furnace department,
100; in the railroad department (operating thirty miles of
railroad), 150 men. A new blast furnace, now nearly com-
pleted, and which will go in blast November 1st proximo,
using Coalton coal as fuel, will produce seventy-five tons of
iron per day. The company has extensive car and machine
shops, and builds and maintains its locomotives, cars, and
rolling stock.
    Annual product in all branches -800,000
    Wages paid -350,000
  The Norton Iron Works organized in 1872. Paid up cap-
ital, 800,000. Its works consist of a rolling-mill, nail fac-
tory, blast furnace, and keg factory. It also owns valuable
coal and ore mines in Boyd, Carter and Greenup counties.
  The blast furnace has a capacity of seventy-five tons per
day, fuel used being Coalton, or No. 7 coal, worked from
mines on the lands of the company. This coal is also used
with excellent results in the puddling furnaces of the rolling
mills. All iron produced is worked through the rolling mill
into nail plate, and converted in the nail factory into nails.
The factory has one hundred and twenty-eight nail machines,
capable of turning out an average of seven thousand kegs
per week. There is employed at the main plant in Ashland,
and in the, auxiliary departments in the country, one thou-
sand persons, the larger proportion being skilled labor.
  The wages paid annually reaches an average of 350,000,
and for material consumed an equivalent sum. It is in con-
templation by the management to erect next year a full-sized
Bessemer steel plant, to be operated in connection with the
present works, for the purpose of supplying not only this,
but other companies, with the varied products of steel now
so much in demand by reason of the altered conditions in
the market of the country, with especial reference to the nail
trade. An enterprise of such magnitude will be the most

 


14



important in the manufacturing annals of the town since the
establishment of the Norton Iron Works, as it will repre-
sent in construction alone an outlay of 300,000.
  The most cordial and kindly relations have ever existed
between employers and employes in all branches of manufac-
turing industry. Strikes are rare. The wages have generally
been much above the average in other parts of the country, and
always paid either monthly or bi-monthly, in cash. Default in
payment of wagps, or passing a regular pay-day, has never
been known.
  The character of the labor is intelligent, thrifty, and con-
tented. It may safely be stated that the working men of Ash-
land, in a larger proportion than elsewhere in the country, own
their homes. There are five building and loan associations
in successful operation here, which afford the members an
easy method of acquiring a, fund for the purchase of a home,
by means of small payments, provided by a weekly saving.
This accumulation of property conduces to better citizenship,
and the intelligent, reliable quality of labor, and the body of
our working men constitutes a citizenship of which any com-
munity may well be proud.
  For the town may be claimed the distinction that it ouwes not
a cent. The rate of taxation is very low. Twenty cents on the
hundred goes to the support of a splendid system of graded
schools, and fifteen cents has hitherto been sufficient for ordi-
nary expenses of city government. A new city building has
just been erected, at a cost of 10,000, and is paid for, with no
debt over. All branches of trade are well represented and
successfully conducted. Every branch of industry is running
to full capacity, and is prosperous to a degree not known for
years.
  In these the town of Ashland is second to none, and has
easily the advantage over any other Kentucky town, as a point
for the acquisition of raw material for all manufacturing pur-
poses and distribution in the markets of the world.
  The town is immediately upon the line of the Newport
News  Mississippi Valley Company, a transcontinental lime
east, west and south. By the Scioto valley it is but 130
miles to Columbus, Ohio, and a connection there with the

 



great trunk lines of the country. The Chattaroi Railroad
places us in direct access to the wonderful coal deposits and
timber supply of the Big Sandy Valley; and if the hope of
the owners and managet s of that line, and the gentlemen
now controlling what is known-as the Charleston. Cincinnati
 Chicago Railway Company, shall be realized, we will have
as tributary to the town, the famed iron and steel ores of North
Carolina and South-western Virginia, and the celebrated cok-
ing coal of the Elkhorn district. With this not uncertain
event assured, Ashland would have to pre-eminence an ad-
vantage in her manufactures over any locality in the United
States. The valley of the Big Sandy has logg been the source
of timber supply to the markets of Cincinnati and Louisville,
and next,, perhaps, to the valley of the Upper Cumberland,
has the largest supply of timber of original growth in the
Commonwealth. It is rafted and floated to Catlettsburg, but
five miles distant, and can be delivered here at the same price
as there.
  The Ashland Coal and Iron Railway transports to our fac-
tories, at merely nominal cost, a superior fuel coal, and from
the country adjacent to its line every grade and quality of
timber can be procured, and cheaply transported. The comple-
tion of the railroad from this point to Maysville and Covington
places us within four hours of Cincinnati,. and as the line of
road is immediately upon the south bank of the Ohio river,
and in competition with the established river transportation
lines, cheapness of rates is assured. Then the advantages of
river transportation to all points between Pittsburg and Cairo,
St. Paul, and New Orleans. need but be mentioned to be appre-
ciated.
  The original proprietors of the town have, with singular
judgment and foresight, reserved sites for manufacturing
plants. and have ever been found liberal in negotiating terms
for their acquisition by men who come prepared to establish
any branch of manufacturing industry likely to redound to
the general advantage of the town. Every inducement and
encouragement, and a most hearty welcome and co-operation,
will be extended to all persons coming here in good faith to
add to our industries.

 



16



   It may well be stated here that Ashland is above the flood
tide of 1883.
   It is beyond the scope of this communication to designate a
particular branch of industry likely to succeed here; it has
rather been the purpose to put fairly and without color the
local surrounding and points of advantage with particular
reference to low rates of taxation; advantages of schools and
churches; cheapness and accessibility of raw material, and
the exceptional advantages of the town in its facilities for
transportation and distribution of manufactured product; be-
lieving these to be so much to the advantage of the place as
to commend its locality to any person inclined to embark in
any branch of manufacturing enterprise.
  The following table is designed to show the number of man-
ufacturing establishments in Ashland, Boyd county, and the
capital of each; also the number of hands employed, annual
product, and wages paid: 

         NAME! Capital in- No.of hands        Annual   Value pro-
           NAM1!.      s  vested.  employed, wages paid.  duct


Norton Iron Works.. .     800,000     1,000   860,000    900,000
Ashland C.  I. Railway.  1,600,000      800    825,000     900,000
Hermann Furniture Company 100,000        66     36,000     100,000
Hub and Spoke Factory.. ,  16,000       100     36,000     100,000
Ashland Fire Brick Company.20,000        60     80,000     86,000
Red Brick Factories...       6,000        30     20,000     3G, 000
Ashland F'dry Ma'ne Shops 10,000        20     12,000     80,000
Saw aud Planing Mill...    10,000 I      10      6,000     20,000
Dry Ddcks Company.. ..      6,000        16      7,000     15,000
Cigar Factories.... ..      1,000        10      f6,000     9,000
Flour Mills... . .. ..     26,000        10      7,600     60,0OU0
Local forces of C.  O., Scioto
Valley, Chattaroi, and A.
   I. .. . .. . .. . . . .. . .        7      45,000.
  Totals .... ..... . 2,492,000 j      2,186   879,600  2,200,000


                      BIULLITT COUNTY.
  Buflilt county lies south of the city of Louisville nine or
ten miles, and was organized in the, year 1796.
  The soil is limestone, with some slate and soapstone, and
generally adapted to the production of seed and grain of all
 Except Norton Iron Works and Ashland Coal and Iron Railway Company,
others in this table established since 1880.

 


17



kinds; and abounds with good building stone, much of it con-
venient to shipment on railroad and river. Its lands are
divided into hill land and bottom land, all of which is gen-
erally suitable for cultivation, and the hills unsurpassed for
fruit and grazing; and is one of the very best fruit-growing
counties throughout the State.  It is traversed through the
centre of the county from north to south by the Louisville
and Nashville Railroad. The southern part of the county is
also traversed by the Knoxville and Bardstown branches of
said road. Salt river runs from east to west through the
centre of the county, and is navigable from its mouth to the
town of Shepherdsville, the county seat of Bullitt. Rolling
Fork, on the south of Salt river, and Floyd's Fork on its north,
empty into Salt riv