Part 13

But the time had to come when this wilderness would be approached on all sides, attacked, penetrated to the heart. Such wealth of resources could not be let alone or remain unused. As respects the development of the region, the industrial problem may be said to have taken two forms--the one, the development of the coal and iron on opposite sides of the mountains, the manufacture of coke and iron and steel, the establishment of wood-working industries, and the delivery of all products to the markets of the land; second, the bringing together of the coals on the north side and the ores throughout the south. In this way, then, the Cumberland Mountain no longer offered a barrier merely to the civilization of Kentucky, but to the solution of the greatest economic problem of the age--the cheapest manufacture of iron and steel. But before the pressure of this need the mountain had to give way and surrender its treasures. At any cost of money and labor, the time had to come when it would pay to bring these coals and ores together. But how was this to be done? The answer was simple: it must be done by means of natural water gaps and by tunnels through the mountain. It is the object of this paper to call attention to the way in which the new civilization of the South is expected to work at four mountain passes, and to point out some of the results which are to follow.

II

On the Kentucky side of the mighty wall of the Cumberland Mountain, and nearly parallel with it, is the sharp single wall of Pine Mountain, the westernmost ridge of the Alleghany system. For about a hundred miles these two gnarled and ancient monsters lie crouched side by side, guarding between them their hidden stronghold of treasure--an immense valley of timbers and irons and coals. Near the middle point of this inner wall there occurs a geological fault. The mountain falls apart as though cut in twain by some heavy downward stroke, showing on the faces of the fissure precipitous sides wooded to the crests. There is thus formed the celebrated and magnificent pass through which the Cumberland River--one of the most beautiful in the land--slips silently out of its mountain valley, and passes on to the hills and the plateaus of Kentucky. In the gap there is a space for the bed of this river, and on each side of the river space for a roadway and nothing more.

Note the commanding situation of this inner pass. Travel east along Pine Mountain or travel west, and you find no other water gap within a hundred miles. Through this that thin, toiling line of pioneer civilizers made its way, having scaled the great outer Cumberland wall some fifteen miles southward. But for this single geological fault, by which a water gap of the inner mountain was placed opposite a depression in the outer mountain, thus creating a continuous passway through both, the colonization of Kentucky, difficult enough even with this advantage, would have been indefinitely delayed, or from this side wholly impossible. Through this inner portal was traced in time the regular path of the pioneers, afterwards known as the Wilderness Road. On account of the travel over this road and the controlling nature of the site, there was long ago formed on the spot a little backwoods settlement, calling itself Pineville. It consisted of a single straggling line of cabins and shanties of logs on each side of a roadway, this road being the path of the pioneers. In the course of time it was made the county-seat. Being the county-seat, the way-side village, catching every traveller on foot or on horse or in wagons, began some years ago to make itself still better known as the scene of mountain feuds. The name of the town when uttered anywhere in Kentucky suggested but one thing--a blot on the civilization of the State, a mountain fastness where the human problem seems most intractable. A few such places have done more to foster the unfortunate impression which Kentucky has made upon the outside world than all the towns of the blue-grass country put together.

Five summers ago, in 1885, in order to prepare an article for HARPER'S MAGAZINE on the mountain folk of the Cumberland region, I made my way towards this mountain town, now riding on a buck-board, now on a horse whose back was like a board that was too stiff to buck. The road I travelled was that great highway between Kentucky and the South which at various times within a hundred years has been known as the Wilderness Road, or the Cumberland Road, or the National Turnpike, or the "Kaintuck Hog Road," as it was called by the mountaineers. It is impossible to come upon this road without pausing, or to write of it without a tribute. It led from Baltimore over the mountains of Virginia through the great wilderness by Cumberland Gap. All roads below Philadelphia converged at this gap, just as the buffalo and Indian trails had earlier converged, and just as many railroads are converging now. The improvement of this road became in time the pet scheme of the State governments of Virginia and Kentucky. Before the war millions of head of stock--horses, hogs, cattle, mules--were driven over it to the southern markets; and thousands of vehicles, with families and servants and trunks, have somehow passed over it, coming northward into Kentucky, or going southward on pleasure excursions. During the war vast commissary stores passed back and forth, following the movement of armies. But despite all this--despite all that has been done to civilize it since Boone traced its course in 1790, this honored historic thoroughfare remains to-day as it was in the beginning, with all its sloughs and sands, its mud and holes, and jutting ledges of rock and loose bowlders, and twists and turns, and general total depravity.

It is not surprising that when the original Kentuckians were settled on the blue-grass plateau they sternly set about the making of good roads, and to this day remain the best road-builders in America. One such road was enough. They are said to have been notorious for profanity, those who came into Kentucky from this side. Naturally. Many were infidels--there are roads that make a man lose faith. It is known that the more pious companies of them, as they travelled along, would now and then give up in despair, sit down, raise a hymn, and have prayers before they could go farther. Perhaps one of the provocations to homicide among the mountain people should be reckoned this road. I have seen two of the mildest of men, after riding over it for a few hours, lose their temper and begin to fight--fight their horses, fight the flies, fight the cobwebs on their noses, fight anything.

Over this road, then, and towards this town, one day, five summers ago, I was picking my course, but not without pale human apprehensions. At that time one did not visit Pineville for nothing. When I reached it I found it tense with repressed excitement. Only a few days previous there had been a murderous affray in the streets; the inhabitants had taken sides; a dead-line had been drawn through the town, so that those living on either side crossed to the other at the risk of their lives; and there was blue murder in the air. I was a stranger; I was innocent; I was peaceful. But I was told that to be a stranger and innocent and peaceful did no good. Stopping to eat, I fain would have avoided, only it seemed best not to be murdered for refusing. All that I now remember of the dinner was a corn-bread that would have made a fine building stone, being of an attractive bluish tint, hardening rapidly upon exposure to the atmosphere, and being susceptible of a high polish. A block of this, freshly quarried, I took, and then was up and away. But not quickly, for having exchanged my horse for another, I found that the latter moved off as though at every step expecting to cross the dead-line, and so perish. The impression of the place was one never to be forgotten, with its squalid hovels, its ragged armed men collected suspiciously in little groups, with angry, distrustful faces, or peering out from behind the ambush of a window.

A few weeks ago I went again to Pineville, this time by means of one of the most extensive and powerful railroad systems of the South. At the station a 'bus was waiting to take passengers to the hotel. The station was on one side of the river, the hotel on the other. We were driven across a new iron bridge, this being but one of four now spanning the river formerly crossed at a single ford. At the hotel we were received by a porter of metropolitan urbanity and self-esteem. Entering the hotel, I found it lighted by gas, and full of guests from different parts of the United States. In the lobby there was a suppressed murmur of refined voices coming from groups engaged in serious talk. As by-and-by I sat in a spacious dining-room, looking over a freshly-printed bill of fare, some one in the parlors opposite was playing on the piano airs from "Tannhäuser" and "Billee Taylor." The dining-room was animated by a throng of brisk, tidy, white young waiting-girls, some of whom were far too pretty to look at except from behind a thick napkin; and presently, to close this experience of the new Pineville, there came along such inconceivable flannel-cakes and molasses that, forgetting industrial and social problems, I gave myself up to the enjoyment of a problem personal and gastric; and erelong, having spread myself between snowy sheets, I melted away, as the butter between the cakes, into warm slumber, having first poured over myself a syrup of thanksgiving.

The next morning I looked out of my window upon a long pleasant valley, mountain-sheltered, and crossed by the winding Cumberland; here and there cottages of a smart modern air already built or building; in another direction, business blocks of brick and stone, graded streets and avenues and macadamized roads; and elsewhere, saw and planing mills, coke ovens, and other evidences of commercial development. Through the open door of a church I saw a Catholic congregation already on its knees, and the worshippers of various Protestant denominations were looking towards their own temples. The old Pineville, happily situated farther down the river, at the very opening of the pass, was rapidly going to ruins. The passion for homicide had changed into a passion for land speculation. The very man on whose account at my former visit the old Pineville had been divided into two deadly factions, whose name throughout all the region once stood for mediæval violence, had become a real-estate agent. I was introduced to him.

"Sir," said I, "I don't feel so _very_ much afraid of you."

"Sir," said he, "I don't like to run myself."

Such, briefly, is the impression made by the new Pineville--a new people there, new industries, new moral atmosphere, new civilization.

The explanation of this change is not far to seek. By virtue of its commanding position as the only inner gateway to the North, this pass was the central point of distribution for south-eastern Kentucky. Flowing into the Cumberland, on the north side of the mountain, is Clear Creek, and on the south side is Strait Creek, the two principal streams of this region, and supplying water-power and drainage. Tributary to these streams are, say, half a million acres of noble timber land; in the mountains around, the best coals, coking and domestic; elsewhere, iron ores, pure brown, hematite, and carbonates; inexhaustible quantities of limestone, blue-gray sandstone, brick clays; gushing from the mountains, abundant streams of healthful freestone water; on the northern hill-sides, a deep loam suitable for grass and gardens and fruits. Add to this that through this water-gap, following the path of the Wilderness Road, as the Wilderness Road had followed the path of the Indian and the buffalo--through this water-gap would have to pass all railroads that should connect the North and South by means of that historic and ancient highway of traffic and travel.

On the basis of these facts, three summers ago a few lawyers in Louisville bought 300 acres of land near the riotous old town of Pineville, and in the same summer was organized the Pine Mountain Iron and Coal Company, which now, however, owns about twenty thousand acres, with a capital stock of $2,000,000. It should be noted that Southern men and native capital began this enterprise, and that although other stockholders are from Chicago and New England, most of the capital remains in the State. Development has been rapidly carried forward, and over five hundred thousand dollars' worth of lots have been sold the present year. It is pleasant to dwell upon the future that is promised for this place; pleasant to hear that over six hundred acres in this pleasant valley are to be platted; that there are to be iron-furnaces and electric lights, concrete sidewalks and a street railway, more bridges, brick-yards, and a high-school; and that the seventy-five coke ovens now in blast are to be increased to a thousand. Let it be put down to the credit of this vigorous little mountain town that it is the first place in that region to put Kentucky coke upon the market, and create a wide demand for it in remote quarters--Cincinnati alone offering to take the daily output of 500 ovens.

Thus the industrial and human problems are beginning to solve themselves side by side in the backwoods of Kentucky. You begin with coke and end with Christianity. It is the boast of Pineville that as soon as it begins to make its own iron it can build its houses without calling on the outside world for an ounce of material.

III

Middlesborough! For a good many years in England and throughout the world the name has stood associated with wealth and commercial greatness--the idea of a powerful city near the mouth of the Tees, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, which has become the principal seat of the English iron trade. It is therefore curious to remember that near the beginning of the century there stood on the site of this powerful city four farm-houses and a ruined shrine of St. Hilda; that it took thirty years to bring the population up to the number of one hundred and fifty-four souls; that the discovery of ironstone, as it seems to be called on that side, gave it a boom, as it is called on this; so that ten years ago it had some sixty thousand people, its hundred and thirty blast-furnaces, besides other industries, and an annual output in pig-iron of nearly two million tons.

But there is now an English Middlesborough in America, which is already giving to the name another significance in the stock market of London and among the financial journals of the realm; and if the idea of its founders is ever realized, if its present rate of development goes on, it will in time represent as much wealth in gold and iron as the older city.

In the mere idea of the American or Kentucky Middlesborough--for while it seems to be meant for America, it is to be found in Kentucky--there is something to arrest attention on the score of originality. That the attention of wealthy commoners, bankers, scientists, and iron-masters of Great Britain--some of them men long engaged in copper, tin, and gold mines in the remotest quarters of the globe--that the attention of such men should be focussed on a certain spot in the backwoods of Kentucky; that they should repeatedly send over experts to report on the combination of mineral and timber wealth; that on the basis of such reports they should form themselves into a company called "The American Association, Limited," and purchase 60,000 acres of land lying on each side of the Cumberland Mountain, and around the meeting-point of the States of Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky; that an allied association, called "The Middlesborough Town Company," should place here the site of a city, with the idea of making it the principal seat of the iron and steel manufacture of the United States; that they should go to work to create this city outright by pouring in capital for every needed purpose; that they should remove gigantic obstacles in order to connect it with the national highways of commerce; that they should thus expend some twenty million dollars, and let it be known that all millions further wanted were forthcoming--in the idea of this there is enough to make one pause.

As one cannot ponder the idea of the enterprise without being impressed with its largeness, so one cannot visit the place without being struck by the energy with which the plan is being wrought at. "It is not sufficient to know that this property possesses coal and iron of good quality and in considerable quantities, and that the deposits are situated close together, but that they exist in such circumstances as will give us considerable advantages over any competitors that either now exist or whose existence can in any way be foreseen in the near future." Such were the instructions of these English capitalists to their agent in America. It was characteristic of their race and of that method of business by which they have become the masters of commerce the world over. In it is the germ of their idea--to establish a city for the manufacture of iron and steel which, by its wealth of resources, advantages of situation, and complete development, should place competition at a disadvantage, and thus make it impossible.

It yet remains to be seen whether this can be done. Perhaps even the hope of it came from an inadequate knowledge of how vast a region they had entered, and how incalculable its wealth. Perhaps it was too much to expect that any one city, however situated, however connected, however developed, should be able to absorb or even to control the development of that region and the distribution of its resources to all points of the land. It suggests the idea of a single woodpecker's hoping to carry off the cherries from a tree which a noble company of cats and jays and other birds were watching; or of a family of squirrels who should take up their abode in a certain hole with the idea of eating all the walnuts in a forest. But however this may turn out, these Englishmen, having once set before themselves their aim, have never swerved from trying to attain it; and they are at work developing their city with the hope that it will bring as great a change in the steel market of the United States as a few years ago was made in the iron market by the manufacture of Southern iron.

If you take up in detail the working out of their plan of development, it is the same--no stint, no drawing back or swerving aside, no abatement of the greatest intentions. They must have a site for their city--they choose for this site what with entire truthfulness may be called one of the most strategic mountain passes in American history. They must have a name--they choose that of the principal seat of the English iron trade. They must have a plant for the manufacture of steel by the basic process--they promise it shall be the largest in the United States. They want a tannery--it shall be the biggest in the world. A creek has to be straightened to improve drainage--they spend on it a hundred thousand dollars. They will have their mineral resources known--they order a car to be built, stock it with an exposition of their minerals, place it in charge of technical experts, and set it going over the country. They take a notion to establish a casino, sanitarium, and hotel--it must cost over seven hundred thousand dollars. The mountain is in their way--that mighty wall of the Cumberland Mountain which has been in the way of the whole United States for over a hundred years--they remove this mountain; that is, they dig through it a great union tunnel, 3750 feet long, beginning in Kentucky, running under a corner of Virginia, and coming out in Tennessee. Had they done nothing but this, they would have done enough to entitle them to the gratitude of the nation, for it is an event of national importance. It brings the South and the Atlantic seaboard in connection with the Ohio Valley and the Lakes; it does more to make the North and the South one than any other single thing that has happened since the close of the Civil War.

On the same trip that took me to Pineville five summers ago, I rode from that place southward towards the wall of Cumberland Mountain. I wished to climb this wall at that vast depression in it known as Cumberland Gap. It was a tranquil afternoon as I took my course over the ancient Wilderness Road through the valley of the Yellow Creek. Many a time since, the memory of that ride has come back to me--the forests of magnificent timbers, open spaces of cleared land showing the amphitheatre of hills in the purple distance, the winding of a shadowy green-banked stream, the tranquil loneliness, the purity of primeval solitude. The flitting of a bird between one and the azure sky overhead was company, a wild flower bending over the water's edge was friendship. Nothing broke rudely in upon the spirit of the scene but here and there a way-side log-cabin, with its hopeless squalor, hopeless human inmates. If imagination sought relief from loneliness, it found it only in conjuring from the dust of the road that innumerable caravan of life from barbarism to civilization, from the savage to the soldier, that has passed hither and thither, leaving the wealth of nature unravished, its solitude unbroken.

In the hush of the evening and amid the silence of eternity, I drew the rein of my tired horse on the site of the present town. Before me in the mere distance, and outlined against the glory of the sky, there towered at last the mighty mountain wall, showing the vast depression of the gap--the portal to the greatness of the commonwealth. Stretching away in every direction was a wide plain, broken here and there by wooded knolls, and uniting itself with graceful curves to the gentle slopes of the surrounding mountains. The ineffable beauty, the vast repose, the overawing majesty of the historic portal, the memories, the shadows--they are never to be forgotten.

A few weeks ago I reached the same spot as the sun was rising, having come thither from Pineville by rail. As I stepped from the train I saw that the shadowy valley of my remembrance had been incredibly transformed. Some idea of the plan of the new town may be understood from the fact that Cumberland Avenue and Peterborough Avenue, intersecting each other near the central point of it, are, when completed, to be severally three and a half or four and a half miles long. There are twenty avenues and thirty streets in all, ranging from a hundred feet to sixty feet wide. So long and broad and level are the thoroughfares that the plan, as projected, suggests comparison with Louisville. The valley site itself contains some six thousand available acres.

It should be understood that the company owns property on the Tennessee side of the gap, and that at the foot of the valley, where a magnificent spring gushes out, with various other mineral springs near by--chalybeate and sulphur--it is proposed to establish a hotel, sanitarium, and casino which shall equal in sumptuousness the most noted European spas.