Covington Improvement Company

Covington, Virginia

R. L. PARRISH, PRESIDENT	R.F. EAKLE, JR., GEN'L MANAGER
FRANK LYMAN, VICE-PRESIDENT	J.J. HOBBS, SEC'Y AND TREAS'R

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

R. L. PARISH	JNO. S. HAM	J. T. FUDGE
E. M. NETTLETON	FRANK LYMAN	WM. M. McALLISTER
A. A. McALLISTER	W.A. RINEHART	A.C. SNYDER

PROSPECTUS

Covington is in the centre of the richest and most extensive deposits of high grade iron-ore in the United States, and is nearer the coal and coke fields of West Virginia than any other town in the iron belt of the Virginias.  In a recent interview with Mr. Ingalls, the president of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company, he declared that "nowhere in America can iron of superior quality be made so cheaply as within a radius of fifty miles at the base of the Alleghany mountains, taking Covington as a centre."  There the Dolly Ann, the Stack, the Rich Patch, and the Mud Tunnel mines are daily turning out hundreds of tons of ore, and have been for several years supplying such furnaces at Lowmoor, Victoria, Quinnemont, and others.  An expert has declared that ore can be mined profitably in the Pott's Creek district, which commences at Covington and through which a railroad is projected, at fifty cents per ton.

Surrounding Covington, and within a stone's throw of ideal furnace sites, are immense limestone bluffs; while but a short distance away the New River coal-fields supply a coke which has no superior in the United States for furnace uses.  Mr. E. J. Bird, Jr., a well known furnace man of Ironton, Ohio, recently said: "There are more enormous deposits of high grade iron-ore up Pott's Creek than at any other point I know of in Virginia.  After looking over the whole field I have decided to build a furnace and a muck-bar at Covington, in spite of the fact that other town companies offered me much larger inducements so far as money and land are concerned.  The combined propinquity of coke, ore, and limestone count for more, however, than mere bonuses.  The truth is, every bona fide manufacturer seeks cheap raw material rather than a bonus.  And why?  Let us suppose that a furnace owner is offered $50,000, while I locate my furnace at a point where I can get raw material for only ten cents a ton cheaper than he can get it.  That means forty-five cents a ton on the pig-iron produced, which will pay the bonus offered in less than three years, and continue a dividend of ten to twelve per cent, on an invested capital of $200,00 in favor of my plant against the man who located for the bonus.  I mean by This, " continued Mr. Bird, " that it takes four and a half tons of raw material to make a ton of finished pig, which at ten cents a ton in favor of the consumer means forty-five cents per ton on the iron produced, or $18,000 per annum from a concern producing 40,000 tons a year.  Now, Covington is, in the first place, located nearer the new River coal-fields than any other town of the iron district on the Chesapeake and Ohio railway; hence an advantage in freight on coke.   It is also located nearer the basin of development of different sections of good ores than any other town I know of along the Chesapeake and Ohio system.  It is but fair to state that the Birmingham (Alabama) district has closer grouping of raw material; yet when we take into view the quality and value of the pig-iron produced here, and the nearness to the market, the advantages from a financial standpoint are, in my judgment, decidedly in favor of this district.  The advantage possessed by this region is certainly from one to two dollars a ton, because the Covington pig is better suited for machine castings, merchant bar, nails, and the like than an iron made from fossil ores without the introduction of a brown hematite as a mixture.  Moreover, the Virginia iron, melted from brown hematite by New River cokes, stands second to none in the United States.

The foregoing statement by Mr. Bird will have great weight with iron-master all over the Union, as he is well  know as a successful furnace man of large experience,as was his father before him.  The iron produced from the Covington ores is well known from the Atlantic to the Rocky mountains as being strictly neutral, and as being particularly adapted to machine casting, ordnance castings, and stove and agricultural castings.  The Princess furnace, below Covington, was awarded the contract for furnishing the iron for the United States cruisers Nos. 7 and 8, at $2 a ton over any of its competitors.  In the manufacture of bar and wrought-iron the pig made from the Covington ores has no suoperior in the market.  The following analyses are of some of the mines near Covington:

	No. 1	No. 2	No. 3	No. 4
Silica	20.99	18.77	5.83	1.88
Iron	47.72	47.38	50.04	58.88
Alumina	3.27	2.81	570	4.00
Manganese	.36	.29	.22	.23
Phosphorus	Trace	.47	.34	.09
Sulfur	Trace	Trace	.03	Trace

The above ore can be delivered on the line of the Chesapeake and Ohio railway at from $1.50 to $2 per ton, and as soon as the Pott's Creek district is open the cost will be considerably reduced.  The manganese being low makes the ores desirable for foundry-iron puposes, as in casting unusual shapes it will not crack in shrinking, nor harden in the corners or on the edges, thus insuring easy work at planer and lathe.  The phosphorus is at a point which will give a strictly neutral pig.  The coal-fields of the New River are penetrated by the Chesapeake and Ohio railway while the completion of the Craig Valley branch and of the Warm Springs road to a connection with the Pittsburg and Virginia railroad will give access to the Pocahontas coking coal fields and an equally good coal and coke region in West Virginia.  These cokes can be delivered at Covington at a cost not to exceed $2.75 a ton, and as they are all well-known brands for the manufacture of either mill, foundry, or Bessmer pig-iron, they need no further mention as to quality, though we give below an analysis of the New River coke:

Ash	5.15	Carbon	92.88
Sulfur	.82	Volatile matter	115

Limestone can be delivered at the furnace at a cost not to exceed 40 cents per ton.  A ton of pig iron at Covington costs at present about as follows:

1 1/4 tons of coke, at $2.75 per ton	$3.44
2 1/5 tons of iron-ore, at $2.00 per ton	$4.40
3/4 ton of limestone, at 40 cents per ton	$.30
Labor and salaries	$1.75
Incidentals	$.40
Total	$10.29

This cost, we believe, can be materially reduced as soon as the iron-ore fields are more thoroughly opened.  The average selling price of foundry iron at the present time in Pittsburg is $16 cash.  The freight from Covington to Pittsburg over the Chesapeake and Ohio railway is $2.25, but with the completion of the Warm Springs road and the Pittsburg and Virginia road, pig iron can be handled from Covington to Pittsburg at $1.50 per ton, giving a profit of $4.21 on No. 1 foundry iron, and about $3.21 on No. 2 foundry.  Mill iron can be converted into muck iron at Covington at a cost of $10 per ton, and adding $1.50 for freight to Pittsburg, we have a cost of muck iron there of $21.79. As muck iron is selling in Pittsburg at present at $26.50 to $27 a ton, we have a profit of from $4.71 to $5.21 a ton.

But while Covington bases its claim of superiority as a place of investment chiefly on its unsurpassed advantages for the cheap production of iron, it is not lacking in other resources.  It is surrounded by hundreds of square miles of virgin forest, in which is found every variety of tree indigenous to this soil and climate.  It is only by taking into consideration the marvellous growth some years ago of Western towns whose prosperity was almost entirely based on the lumbering business, that we are able to appreciate the influence the timber interest will have on the future growth of such points as Covington.  The great forests of the Northwest are being rapidly destroyed, and the immense capital which has heretofore found profitable operation in lumbering, furniture-making, and kindred interests throughout Wisconsin, Michigan,, and adjoining States will now finds it chief field of operation in the South.  The tanning interests are also capable of great development, as the supply of bark is almost unlimited in the section which will be opened up by the Camden system of railroads.  Pulp mills can find here cheap raw material for centuries to come, as the forests of spruce, which is used in the making of pulp, are unequalled in extent anywhere in this country.

A large deposit of cement within a mile of Covington furnished the cement used in the building of the bridges along the line of the Chesapeake and Ohio railway in this section.

Situated as it is on that great trunk line, the Chesapeake and Ohio railway, at a point where, after passing through the coal-fields of the Kanawha and the New River on its way to the seaboard, that road first strikes the immense iron-ore deposits of Virginia, and where the Camden road coming down Jackson river from the north must cross in order to reach the Pott's Creek ore and the Pocahontas coking fields, Covington is a strategic point of great importance in the warfare for industrial supremacy.  The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway has already built twenty five miles to the north, following the course of the Jackson river, and surveyors are in the field locating a line to connect with the Camden and Davis systems.  In a recent interview with Mr. Camden regarding the progress of the work on his road, he said: "The new roads are progressing very satisfactorily indeed.  The Monongahela River road from Fairmont to Clarksburg is one of the best built roads in the State and opens up the finest coal territory I have ever seen.  It runs thirty five miles along a nine-foot vein of the very best coal.  The roads from Clarksburg to the Buckannon river, and from Weston to Braxton C. H., on the Elk river, are also completed.  They are standard gauge, well-built and well-ballasted roads, and have good propects for business.  The work on the road from Braxton Courthouse to the Gauley river, in Webster county, is progressing rapidly.  The grading will be finished this fall and the road open for business next spring.  The timber resources of this region are wonderful.  I do not think it has its equal anywhere east of the Mississippi, or perhaps in the country anywhere, for valuable hard woods.  The railroad company is building a lumber plant on the Gauley river which will produce from forty to fifty million feet of lumber a year.  The forest in that section is very dense.  There are from four to five hundred square miles that is practically an unbroken forest.  Cherry, poplar, ash, oak, and pine are very abundant, and the very finest cherry and oak.  From the Gauly river the road will extend to a connection witht thChesapeake and Ohio road at Covington.  Arrangement have just been completed between the Chesapeake and Ohio road and the West Virginia and Pittsgurg road to form a junction at Marlin's Bottom, or some point on the Greenbrier river.  This junction is expected to be made next summer.  The Chesapeake and Ohio will only have about twenty five miles to complete from its Warm Springs branch, and the West Virginia and Pittsburg road about thirty-five miles from the Gauley.  This connection with the Chesapeake and Ohio road will open up a direct line through the center of the State (West Virginia) from the iron ore regions of Virginia, including Pott's Creek and Craig's Creek, and from the Covington and other furnaces in that section, to Wheeling and Pittsburg, while it will also develop and make accessible about one hundred and fifty miles of the State between Weston and the Virginia line which has heretofore been inaccessible to transportation.  We expect to have it all completed next summer."  The completion of this connection with Pittsburg will make Covington one of the largest industrial centres in the South, as in addition to the connection with the great iron market of Pittsburg, its seaboard and western connections open to it the markets of the country.

Covington has never been a boom town, but its people, recognizing its great natural advantages, have been content with laying the foundations for its future greatness firmly and legitimately -not forcing prices of property up to unreasonable heights, but satisfied to have those who join with them in upbuilding the town sharers in the profits of its future and certain prosperity.  To the capitalist it offers a field of profitable investment not excelled anywhere, while to the homeseeker it offers all the advantages of a mild and equable climate and the purest of waters, of schools, and of a refined, cultivated community.  It is the county-seat of Alleghany county, and at present has a population of about one thousand peaple.  A blast furnace with a capacity of 125 tons per day is in course of erection, while a rolling mill and foundry, and machine-shops are going up rapidly.  A flouring mill, a brick plant with a capacity of 40,000 bricks per day, and several smaller industies are already in active operation.  A national bank with a capital of $50,000 has been in operation for about five months, and already has a line of deposit amounting to more than $140,000.  The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company has just completed a road from Covington to Hot, Warm, and Healing Springs, which property is owned by the Southern Improvement Company, a company composed of New York capitalists and prominent Virginians, who expect to spend several millions of dollars in improving these springs, which are justly celebrated for their medicinal properties.  It is estimated that there will be an annual influw of 50,000 people a year to these resorts as soon as the proposed improvements are completed, all of which will pass through Covington.  In anticipation of this travel, as well as to meet present demands, the Covington Improvement Company has recently built "The Intermont", one of the finest and best-equipped hotels in the South.  The house is luxuriously furnished throughout.  A large and handsomely furnished dining-room and table service of silver and decorated ware attract the eye, while an appetizing menu tempts the palate of the most fastidious; velvet carpets on every room and hall deaden the sound of footsteps, while comfortable beds woo one to a sleep made sweet by the soft breezes of the mountains.  The hotel is lighted by gas, heated by steam, and has hot and cold-water baths on every floor.  There are no inside rooms, and a hydraulic elevator makes all rooms equally desireable.  The hotel is supplied with the purest of freestone water, and within a short distance are several fine cha'ybeate springs.  Situated on the eastern slope of the Alleghanies, 1245 feet above sea level, the scenery from the hotel is as beautiful and exquisite as any in Italy or Switzerland.  Standing in the corridors of the hotel and gazing across undulating ground of the valley to the mountains which rise peak above peak until their outlines are lost in the distance, or looking down into the clear waters of the Jackson river lapping in their course the wooded slopes of the foothills, and reflecting the ever-varying lights and shadows as they chase each other along the mountain sides, one is lead to exclaim, paraphasing a much quoted saying "God might have made a lovelier valley than this valley of the Jackson river, but he never did."  Turn which way you will an equally charming landscape meets your view; and not only is the valley beautiful, but in its green fields there lurks no malaria, and the mountain air carries with it no seeds of disease.  For beauty of situation and for healthfulness of climate Covington is surpassed by no health resort in this country or the old world.  The falls of Falling Springs creek are reached by a drive of eight miles over a picturesque road.  These falls are over one hundred feet in height, and for beauty may justly claim to rival the most noted in this country.  The mountain streams are filled with trout, while the Jackson river affords excellent bass fishing.  The magnificently-equipped "F.F.V." trains of the Chesapeake and Ohio railway reach the hotel in twelve hours from either Cincinnati or New York, meeting here at 7:11 o'clock A.M.

Being at the terminus of the Hot Springs branch of the Chesapeake and Ohio railway, Covington is the distributing point for numerous health and pleasure resorts of the two Virginias.  It is only about twenty miles east to the noted Greenbrier White Sulphur Springs, and about the same distance from the Hot, the Warm, and the Healing Springs.

Maps and any information desired will be furnished on applications to

COVINGTON IMPROVEMENT COMPANY

B. F. EAKLE, JR., General Manager