University of Virginia Library

Its Advantages.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, the county-seat of Albemarle,
is the most populous, prosperous and progressive city
in this section of the State.

In speaking of Charlottesville, the first inclination is to revert
to its past history; and this impulse is almost irresistible,
for the record of its sons both merits and receives the praise and
admiration of the whole country and points out a line worthy

of emulation by all who desire to make a name for history or
to do an act which will lighten the burdens of posterity.
Great explorers, learned jurists and eminent statesmen and
patriots have hailed from its ancient precincts, and the impressions
they have left on the institutions of our country are destined
to be as lasting as liberty itself. These things have their
place; it is not here, however; and while they cannot be forgotten,
yet for the present, at least, we must "let the dead past
bury its dead," and in considering only questions of material
progress and advantage, look alone to the prosperity of the future
and point out the advancement promised us "if we weary
not in well doing."

Located at an elevation of four hundred and fifty feet; surrounded
by the beautiful Blue Ridge and its sub-ranges of
mountains, Charlottesville enjoys celebrity for its lovely landscape
scenery. Its climate is dry and healthy, susceptible to
no sudden changes, with sometimes a few days of severe
winter weather, and only a short term of disagreeable summer
heat accompanied, however, invariably with cool and pleasant
nights. In order for healthfulness to be sure and perfect, the
natural advantages of location and climate must be supplemented
by abundant pure water and perfect drainage. Until
lately the town was supplied with water by wells only, and the
need of a better accommodation, in this respect, was greatly
felt, but the want has now been met by the establishment of
an unequalled system of water-works; leading from pure
mountain streams, and furnishing a supply sufficient for the
greatest demand.

The site of the city is on ground undulating gently, yet
sufficiently to afford a most excellent system of natural drainage.
In view of these advantages, therefore, it is hardly necessary
to say that the place ranks high for healthfulness, so much
so that the city and surrounding country are usually well supplied,
especially during the summer, with temporary sojourners,
who come for rest and relaxation and with a view to recuperate
their health and strength. In addition to this the superior
educational facilities, together with the refinement and hospitality

of its people, concur in making this an eminently desirable
place of residence; and, consequently, among our population
are numbered many, in independent circumstances, who,
as strangers sought out this point as possessing all the attractions
which unite in marking out a place as desirable for a
home.

This is an old town but a new city, having been chartered
by the last legislature under a city government going into
effect July 1, 1888; its growth, has always been healthy, natural
and on a sound and steady basis. While our progress has
not been artificial, neither has it, of late, been slow. In 1880
the population was 2,676, now it is 5,530 with suburbs of at
least 1,000 more.

           

Personal property in 1888	$ 585,260
Personal property in 1880	295,217
Increase	289,943
Real estate in 1888	1,216,012
Real estate in 1880	723,953
Increase	482,159

Our merchants, as a rule, are successful, many of them having
accumulated comfortable furtunes. Their retail trade extends
into six counties and the jobbing trade has also assumed
considerable proportions; this, however, is a comparatively new
departure, but the success it has attained is a guarantee of
future progress. Manufacturing enterprises are also prosperous
and increasing both in numbers and capital. The demand
for houses, especially small ones, has kept far ahead of the
supply, and as another sign of the times there may be mentioned
among recent improvements and new enterprises—a
street railway, electric lights, baking powder company, new gas
plant, water works, ice factory, wire and picket fence company,
sash, door and blind factory, bottling works, two new cigar
factories, as well as many smaller enterprises, all of which are
in successful operation. To show still further the natural
growth of our city we publish the figures (in round numbers)
of building operations for the past few years:

     

1885	96,000
1886	112,000
1887	150,000

And in addition to these sums, there has been expended for
water works, street railway, new gas plant and electric light
plant, nearly $200,000.

The accomplishment of these results is not to be attributed
to accident, the causes are adequate and well defined, and the
powers which developed them are capable of distinct analysis
and definite determination. The causes which operate to
build up cities are both natural and artificial, the forces of nature
are irresistible and they are moreover at work while man
sleeps, and if he but supplies the intelligence and enterprise to
subordinate and utilize them all the conditions of a high and
complete developement are fulfilled, and where they are both
combined in the largest degree, there the greatest results are
found.

The progress which Charlottesville has attained is to be attributed
largely to the former causes; developement has never
been forced, and new enterprises have not been started until
forced forward by demand; and when it is considered that it
has attained its present state of prosperity under these conditions,
and that the community is now fully alive to the great
advantages we possess and that man's intelligence, vigilance
and enterprise is supplementing the wealth and opportunity
that nature has so lavishly supplied, the future of our city
is bright. The people are aroused by a spirit of enterprise
and progressiveness, they are united in their efforts towards
public improvement and are determined in a common purpose
to co-operate with the favorable conditions which surround
them, to develope the raw material, multiply the manufactories,
add to the activity of trade and thus increase the aggregation
of population, prosperity and wealth. Domestic capital
as well as domestic enterprise is devoted to these objects,
but encouragement and assistance is also largely sought away
from home.

Only a brief retrospect need here be given of those advantages
which Charlottesville possesses to give it a place among
the most favored cities of Virginia as a desirable location for
successful business undertakings. Manufacturing is to be considered

as among the most potent factors in developing the
resources of a country, and it is with a view to this, therefore,
that a consideration of our advantages will mainly be directed.

Among the first and most important elements of successful
manufacturing is a good supply of raw material, in easy access.
The limits of this article forbid any detailed mention of
the abundant resources with which nature has freely supplied
our community; however, a careful perusal of this book will
show that either in agricultural products, minerals woods or
fruits, we have an abundant supply easily available and susceptible
of profitable manipulation.

Next in importance, doubtless, is the question of labor, and
it may safely be predicted that the community which can give
assurance to the manufacturer of satisfaction and freedom from
trouble in this regard has a large advantage and offers a great
inducement for the importation of outside capital and new
ideas. In this respect, the outlook for the future must be
mainly predicated upon the experience of the past, and when
it is discovered that we have an advantage a reason should be
sought which will explain it. A considerable proportion of
our population is composed of the laboring classes. They are
provident, frugal and ambitious; many of them own their own
houses, and consequently are happy and contented in the contemplation
of the reward of their industry and economy; and
those who have not been so fortunate are emulating the example
of their more successful neighbors. They are intelligent
and easily trained to new vocations; reasonable in their demands,
requiring only fair and honorable treatment, and when
this is accorded them they freely share with their employers,
if need be, the misfortunes of an adverse season; the results
from these characteristics are that while other communities are
harassed by strikes, lock-outs and dissensions, we know of
them only by name. These attributes are to be applied to the
white and colored laborers alike, and all grades should be included,
from the skilled mechanic to those who carry the hod.
While our community claims pre-eminence for these characteristics
of the laboring classes, it is but fair to say, that they

prevail, to a large degree, throughout the whole South, where
colored labor is extensively employed and is to be traced to
the civilizing and improving influences of former institutions,
under which the servants and laborers, though slaves in name,
[ILLUSTRATION]

Albemarle Female Institute, Charlottesville, Va.

were really like members of the master's family, and were
always ambitious of imitating and acquiring the refinement
which they saw around them; and, although, these institutions
have passed away, this is one of the good results which remain
as a lasting blessing, especially to those in whom the
qualities referred to have become so strongly rooted as to
partake of the nature of instinct. The superiority of our
white laboring classes is to be attributed to a very great extent
to the educational advantages of our community. Education
is the great civilizer of the world, and wherever it
prevails in the greatest degree there its best effects are felt,
and whether it be applied directly to a given individual or only
indirectly to him from an observation of its cultivating and
refining effects on his neighbors, its good results are apparent,
and the fact that it is in the reach of all, even though it be
not taken advantage of, tends to create a desire for self-improvement.
The schools are free to the laborers' sons, and
even the University of Virginia, which is located here, and is
the head of our free school system, affords practically free tuition
to any white, native or adopted Virginian, of whatever walk
in life, who is sufficiently ambitious to undertake its arduous
studies, and the sons of the laboring classes find themselves on
equality there with the sons of any in the land. This institution
has been the means of raising to eminence many of
humble parentage, and the success of each such aspirant has
awakened ambition in many a younger heart, and caused even
the elders to "put their best foot forward." As an educator,
however, still greater good results from the Miller Manual
Labor School of Albemarle, and for the purposes now in
hand it need only be said that this institution combines an
advanced academic education with a practical mechanical
training, both united with the advantages of moral instruction
and home influence, under the supervision of skilled and efficient
teachers; it gives free education, maintenance and support
to the white boys and girls of Albemarle county. The
requisite for their admission being that they are "poor." With
these advantages the laboring classes of Albemarle county
would be untrue to themselves if they could not boast of superiority
in all respects over their fellows whose lot is cast
amid more unfavorable surroundings. And these are cited
therefore as some of the reasons why we claim superiority
over other communities for our laboring classes, and not only
do these things awaken becoming sentiments of pride, but
they are looked upon as advantages enabling us to outstrip
other communities in the race of material progress, and to
acquire an eminence which cannot be attained by other places,
on which providence and the acts of man have been less
favorable in bestowing their blessings.

The questions as to available raw material and labor being
provided for the next important inquiry is as to facilities for
motive power and in this respect Charlottesville takes rank
with the most favored communities. Our situation is near the
large and productive coal fields of West Virginia, so that this
fuel is easily available in large quantities and at small cost.

The superiority of our gas works has directed public attention
somewhat in the line of using gas engines. At $1.50 per
1,000 feet, the cost of motive power, would be less than ten
cents per hour, per horse power. This is the rate at which
gas is sold to the consumers for illumination, to manufactures
a more reduced cost could even now be guaranteed, and with
any reasonable prospect of a demand such as would justify
the production of a lower grade of gas for manufacturing purpose,
greater reduction in price could be secured.

The rapid development of the powers of electricity has
been thought by some to justify the belief that by its application
there will be wrought many revolutions still more startling
than those which are already known—its use and economy
for motive power is already well established, and our Electric
Light Company are urging its adoption for manufacturing
purposes. The proposition is already under consideration to
apply it to the street car line, as well as for other purposes,
and the adoption of electric motors is a project which is liable
to be attended by rapid development and greatly encourage
manufacturing enterprises. These sources of motive power,

with the exception of cheap coal and wood, are mainly artificial,
and such as other communities can compete in to some extent,
but even in the matter of gas and electricity the question of
cheap coal is an element of greatest importance, and one
which enables us to have the advantage of other places where
coal is more expensive.

But passing from the artificial to the natural source of motive
power, it is seen that our city is again blessed with an
abundant advantage in this respect. Available water power
is indeed a great criterion by which to determine as to the
probable success of manufacturing undertakings—for not only
does it, by being directly applied, furnish the cheapest source
of power yet discovered, but also, by competing with other
sources of power it causes their cost to be reduced. In an undulating
country, such as ours, the course of the streams must
in many places be interspersed with falls and rapids. The
Rivanna River runs near the limits of the city for several
miles, at distances varying from half a mile upwards. It
is this stream that furnishes the power for the Charlottesville
Woolen Mills (one of the most successful woolen mills in
the country).

For several miles the river and the line of the Chesapeake
and Ohio railway take a parallel course, and at a point where
the two diverge, some three and a half miles from Charlottesville,
is the site of an old cotton mill, which in ante bellum
times was successfully operated. The power at this point can
nowhere be surpassed. It was formerly utilized by Thomas
Jefferson, whose genius was not only philosophical but also
extremely practical, and he recognized it as a situation valuable
for industrial developments. The location still has the
name with many of "Jefferson's old mill." This power which
is now owned by J. Massie Smith, Esq., was surveyed in 1874
by an eminent hydraulic engineer, and its value cannot be
illustrated better than by an extract from his report:

Further up the stream in an opposite direction from the
city, are other falls capable of furnishing an almost equal
amount of power—notably among them is "Hotopp's rapids,'
at a distance of two and a half miles from the depot; in fact,
the whole course of the river for many miles affords desirable
mill sites, the only requisite being that the upper dams should
be far enough removed from the lower to avoid the "back
water," but no other points are specifically mentioned because
we are now considering only such as are tributary and easily
available to Charlottesville.

Moore's creek, which empties into the Rivanna near the
Woolen Mills, has its course for several miles at a distance
from half a mile to a mile from the city. At some points it is
already occupied by mills. Only one location will now be
mentioned as possessing many preëminent advantages. On the
road to "Monticello," at a point about half a mile from the
depot in Charlottesville, there could be built a factory which
would have the advantages of vicinity to the city and easy
access over a macadamized road. The dam could be constructed
at a point where the banks are high and steep, being
no more than twenty feet apart, and then gradually widen out,
making a natural bank for the confinement of a great body of
water. The elevation above the mill site is so great that
almost any amount of power which may be desired could be
obtained.

Cochran's Mill, Sinclair's Mill, Hartman's Mill and Maury's
Mill, where the power is already occupied, will not be mentioned
more specifically than to state that they are situated from one

to two miles from Charlottesville, respectively, and that their
power is capable of being very much developed.

In this feature of the subject there remains but one more
point to be mentioned. Among the material advantages of
our city our system of water works is unsurpassed. The
reservoir, covering thirty acres, is situated six miles from the
city in the Ragged Mountains; contains 194,000,000 gallons,
and is supplied by two streams of considerable size. The engineer
who superintended its construction calculated that if
these streams could be diverted and not a drop added to the
supply of water it would take upwards of twelve months to
run it dry. It is 156 feet from the bottom to the highest
point of town, and the pressure in the city ranges from 75 to
90 pounds to the square inch. Comment on these facts is
needless to show the amount of power which can be evolved
by means of "water motors," some of them are already in
operation, and the many advantages they possess are too obvious
for detailed mention. Our excellent railroad facilities
are elaborated in another part of this book, and need not be
further mentioned here.

Thus many of the advantages for material progress which
Charlottesville possesses have been detailed; there are others
which space forbids us to mention. Nature has done its part
well for us—the retarding influences of former institutions have
passed away, old prejudices have been numbered with the
things of the past; in the swing of the pendulum of time
the progress and development of the resources of the South
have been behind, the limit, however, has been reached
and the movement now is forward and onward; the old
South is recorded in history, the new South is a thing of
the present and the future; its progress and advancement are
inevitable, all the favorable elements concur, the unfavorable
have ceased to exist. History is said to repeat itself and this
maxim is as true as history itself. In the past record of our
country the tide of emigration was turned towards our beautiful
and productive Southland. Instinctively almost its advantages
were known and the whole course of progress, development

and improvement was in this direction, and especially
towards Virginia. Circumstances, which no longer exist,
however, concurred to turn the tide and the "Great West" came
into notice—the Great West, with its snow storms and its
blizzards, its freezing winters and oppressive summers, where
the struggle for existence is made harder than should be by
the opposition of the elements! These things have had their
effect and now the eyes of many are turned with longing
anticipation of removal to the South. The West, the East,
the North vie with each other in their efforts for enlightenment
and information. All that is needed is that they should
know the facts, and they are rapidly learning them. The desire
of human nature to combine the most comforts and
greatest happiness and contentment while fighting out the
stern battle of life, is irresistible. With us the elements of
this combination exists in their most perfect degree. We
offer these inducements, and will say that we need immigration,
our farms are too large, our population is too sparse, our
resources are as yet undeveloped. There is room and abundance
for all, we want new ideas of progress to encourage us
in our developments, new capital, new industries; and all may
be assured that they will find a welcome, what is known as "a
real old Virginia welcome."

Come and see for yourselves. We cordially invite
your personal inspection.