September 2, 1897
NUNNS SWITCH.
Has Been Struck by a Cyclone of Prosperity, and the Little Town is "On Its Ear."
ED. PRESS: Learning that the little town of Nunns, as it quietly nestled amid its verdure capped hills and shifting sand-bars had been struck by that long deferred wave of "Prosperity" with a big "P." I took the train Sunday morning and in company with Mrs. R. spent a very pleasant day there.
I found, upon investigation, that the boom was a reality and that the little village was actually in the arms of the aforesaid "wave," and appeared as proud and happy as a young Miss in the arms of her first lover.
THE GLADSTONE MINING COMPANY
Such is the name of the new corporation formed to develop the coal deposits adjacent to Nunns. The Company, I am told, is composed of Evansville capitalists principally and that there is sufficient means back of the enterprise to push it to a successful termination. The Company has thus far purchased in fee simple the lands of Tom Simpson, containing some 85 acres. Work has already commenced, and shortly after my arrival at Nunns, in company with Mr. Joe Davis, an experienced coal miner, I ascended a young mountain to the point where a drift into the mine is being made. This drift is about 75 yards west of the old McCollum entry, and was formerly an air shaft for that entry. I went into it some fifty feet from the surface, where the main body of coal is first struck. At or near this point drifting will commence and the working rooms opened. This is the upper strata or vein, as I understand, there being a still better one beneath it. Mr. Davis informs me that these two veins range from 28 to 40 inches in thickness, and that the coal grades as first class bituminous, and is not surpassed in this section for coal of that grade, being comparatively free of sulphur. A tramway is now being built by the company from the railroad to the mouth of the mine, a distance of some 2300 feet, and when completed coal can be delivered from the mine on board the cars at comparatively trifling cost. I learn that it is the intention of the company to make other entrys to the vein along the face of the hill, and before another year I expect to see that whole hill side a bee-hive of human industry, with train loads of black diamonds daily departing from it. Evidently there is a fortune in those hills, and the Gladstone Company seems determined to unearth it.
Hon. Posey, of Evansville, is now superintending the affairs of the company at Nunns. Mr. Posey represented the Evansville district in congress one term. He is a gentleman of means and large business experience, and I regret that he was absent in Evansville Sunday as I should like to have met and had a chat with him. He is boarding with my old friend John Gilbert, and Uncle John informed me that Mr. Posey asserts that there is both coal and oil beneath the bottom lands at Nunns, and after awhile his company will put their drills at work to penetrate it. Suppose the drill should strike a five hundred barrel "gusher." Whew! How that little town would strut!
Our entire visit Sunday was a most pleasant one. The good people there are sociable and friendly, and since the saloon was abolished, some two years ago, peace and quietness now reign where erstwhile drunken debauchery held sway. But yet, it is beginning to be whispered about that a "blind tiger" has recently established its lair near Nunns, and one or two shrewd detectives are now on its trail. Woe be unto the animal if caught.
Nunns needs a post office badly, and the passenger business there is enough to justify a regular ticket agency. For a year or so Mr. J. W. Pritchett, the accommodating merchant, has been attending to the business of the road, flagging trains, etc. "free gratis for nothing," and since the advent of the Gladstone Company the station business at this point has more than trebled.
Verily the future outlook for Nunns is rosy-hued and altogether gladsome.
NEMO.
Source: Crittenden Press. (Marion, Ky.) 1879-1907, September 2, 1897, Image 2 - Chronicling America - The Library of Congress.
[My comments are in brackets.]
