When I was just a boy, my father and I used to go into Powell's Valley to trade in cattle or hogs. We crossed the Log Mountain from Little Clear Creek through the Evans Gap and came down Four Mile Creek into Bingham Town, a suburb of Middlesborough. We crossed this valley, going by the homes of John C. Colson, Jack Mealer, and John Colson, son of J. C. Colson. The whole of the valley, at that time, 1880-1888, was given over to farming. There was no town of any kind in the valley, just a few cross-road stores, and the old Yellow Creek post office.

        With the coming of the Louisville and Nashville the "boom" was started in 1888 in Middlesborough. A town grew, almost over night, and spread over a good part of the Yellow Creek Valley. In January, 1933, there appeared in The Filson Club Historical Quarterly, Vol 7, No. 1, an article on "The Building of Middlesborough -- A notable Epoch in Eastern Kentucky History" by Charles Blanton Roberts, who was Secretary to A. A. Arthur, the founder of Middlesborough. The article is presented here in full:      

I.   THE BUILDING OF MIDDLESBOROUGH

A NOTABLE EPOCH IN EASTERN KENTUCKY HISTORY

By Charles Blanton Roberts

New York City, 40 Wall Street

        When the events were happening which figured in the conversion of the Southeastern Kentucky--Cumberland Gap Region--changing it within two or three years from a quasi-wilderness into a prosperous section with railroads and an industrial and mining town--knowledge of those events was largely confined to residents of Kentucky and Tennessee and nearby states. Even today most people are unaware of the history and wonder of that transformation and its significance in the evolution of what theretofore had been an inaccessible, undeveloped corner of America, though, paradoxically, in the geographic center of the area east of the Mississippi embracing the great manufacturing belt. Its

achievement was the outcome of an adventure, visioned on a grand scale, which had many of the aspects of life in the Great West during its Homeric age and which the epic poets themselves might not have scorned to notice. Incidentally the completed undertaking constituted an instance, among many in American history, of how lastingly important in the material march forward of this country have been the realized conceptions of the individual man of brilliant foresight and surpassing creative endowment.  The article is published by permission of The Filson Club, Louisville, Kentucky.

        In 1888 the hamlet of Cumberland Gap, seated at the foot of the famous pass where the boundary lines of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia meet, was an isolated and lonely spot in the heart of the Cumberland Mountains. it was thirteen miles from a railroad, and could be got to only over unimaginably broken wagonroads. It consisted of perhaps half a dozen homes, with a general store supported mainly by the custom of mountaineers who were sparsely scattered for many miles about. Incredible as it may seem, such represented its growth during the hundred and thirty-five years since Dr. Thomas Walker, of Virginia, discovered the Gap in 1750 (naming it for the Duke of Cumberland), followed by Daniel Boone's trip of exploration in 1770. In the history of Cumberland Gap pioneers Dr. Walker and Daniel Boone, with Alexander A. Arthur of a later period, are the three outstanding figures.

        Mr. Arthur, who was a distant relation of President Chester A. Arthur and much resembled him in appearance, appeared on the scene in 1885. He was a Scotch-Canadian. What he accomplished for that portion of the United States was analogous to what James J. Hill had done for the Northwest. He was a timber expert and he also knew something of minerals. prospecting nearby in the mountains, he found evidences of great coal measures and extensive iron ore deposits in their pristine state. He formed a syndicate to buy up some of the lands, purposing to exploit their stores of untouched natural wealth. His plans contemplated the construction of railroads, the building of a tunnel almost a mile long under Cumberland Gap, and the establishment of a mining and manufacturing city in the vicinity.

        One summer day in 1886 he stood, shirt-sleeved, on the slope of a scrub-covered hill in Bell County, Kentucky, about a mile and a half from the Gap, with two other members of the syndicate who were on a trip of inspection with him. their horses were hitched close by. Below, encircled by virgin mountains, lay Yellow Creek Valley, silent and motionless--a broad, far-flung, basin-like expanse largely woodland, with a lone house or cabin here and there, separated by miles from its nearest fellow. It was frequently the theater of feudist battles, mortal enmities existing between certain families and their respective sequelae similar to those which divided the Guelphs and Ghibellines, the Yorks and Lancasters, and Shakespeare's Montagues and Capulets.

        Mr. Arthur pointed to the valley. "There's where I'll build my city," he remrked to his companions. "Middlesborough, I think, would be a good name for it." As the prototype of his imagined city he had in mind the commercial and manufacturing borough of that name in Yorkshire, England. The syndicate decided that his projects were too stupendous for it to undertake, so he went in search of capital to London, where he had some acquaintance in financial circles. His statements and proposals were listened to and considered. Distinguished English experts were sent to the Cumberland Gap field to investigate and render opinions on the natural resources and other factors. The reports were favorable. A company, The American Association, Limited, was formed and the necessary funds supplied, through flotation of stock, to carry out Mr. Arthur's plans. Thus it happened that, almost a hundred and ten years after England lost her American colonies, "conquistadors" from Albion came out to his little-settled quarter of the United States for the purpose of further "colonization."

        Mr. Arthur was made president and general manager of the company. For a time one of his chief assistants was young Otway Cuffe, who years afterwards (when Sir Otway Fortesque Luke Wheeler-Cuffe, third baronet of Lyrath, Kilkenny) was successively Lieutenant Colonel of the Upper Burmah Volunteer Rifles and Hon. A. D. C. to Lords Minto and Hardinge respectively, Viceroys of India. Among other secondaries in the management were General W. W. Hayward and Colonel Arthur C. Chester Master, both formerly of the British Army.

        The Colson family had been from time out of mind the most prominent in Southeastern Kentucky--John Colson, then deceased, having been the uncrowned but generally acknowledged "King of Yellow Creek." To that titular dignity one of his sons, David G., tacitly succeeded. The old homestead, with its two-story brick house situated at the northeastern entrance to the Valley, still looks on the road which is said to follow the course of Boone's Trail. From "Dave" Colson and his brothers John and "Gil," Mr. Arthur bought, on behalf of the Association, almost the entire Valley, and from them and others, including the well-known Morison family at Cumberland Gap, nearly a hundred thousand acres of mountain lands. Rich before in real property, but nevertheless "land poor," the Colsons thus became suddenly rich in money. David had been to college and was a lawyer. He was subsequently several times elected to Congress, resigning in his fourth term to take the colonelcy of the Fourth Kentucky Regiment, which he was a courteous, soft-spoken gentleman of cultivated tastes, with a natural, spontaneous charm that made him very attractive. To these amenities of personality were joined attributes of a stronger description, on of which was cool, unshrinking physical courage, which more than once displayed itself before personal danger. In the negotiations with the company, Dave as a rule, acted as spokesman for his family. Mr. Arthur is dealing with the natives was usually represented by resident attorneys. Sometimes, however, he traded with them directly and the Kentucky penchant for military titles prevailing, even in the mountains, in such interviews and by written communication he was addressed variously as "Captain," "Colonel," or "General," the last being the most favored.

        Mr. Arthur now let contracts for the construction of the Cumberland Gap tunnel directly beneath the famous "Wilderness Road," which had been "Boones's Path." He also let contracts for a railroad sixty~five miles in length from Knoxville, and for another of twenty- five miles--a belt line, about the perimeter of the Valley and up into the mountain vales where the coal and iron were. Coincident with the commencement of these works began the building of Middlesborough, the name which he had proposed for the town having been adopted. Men of all trades and callings were now entering Yellow Creek Valley, most of them having come by train as far as Pineville, ten miles away, whence they advanced by wagon, hack, horse, or mule. Apparently every city and town in Kentucky, and almost every state, was represented in these various migrants. Although the constituent parts of a few portable houses has been brought in and set up--Mr. Arthur himself using one at this time--tents were employed almost altogether for both living and business purposes, and by mid-autumn of 1889 the Valley looked, at a distance, as if it were occupied by an army.

        Countless trees were felled to make space, and later many of them, trimmed and barked, stood again as telephone, telegraph, and electric-light poles. The huge labor of straightening the meanders of Yellow Creek, which bisected the Valley, was initiated under the supervision of the late Colonel George E. Waring, of New York, engineering expert. Ploughs and dirt-scoops without number were employed in preparing foundations for business buildings, breaking ground for mill and factory, opening streets, and leveling knolls. The rasping of saws and the continuous tattoo of innumerable hammers resounded far and wide. The spectacle was inspiring. Common laborers by the hundreds were changing the face of a passive but nevertheless stubborn earth, and skilled workmen refining and artificializing it with structures, to the end that man might possess himself of another of the world's waste places.

        The conditions were of a pattern in many respects with those of an incipient frontier town or gold-rush settlement in the Far West. The fashion in dress was slouch hats, boots, and negligee shirts. Pistols were carried openly by large numbers, while the native, according to immemorial habit, seldom went abroad unaccompanied by his rifle. Killings were common, and not infrequently several men would fall in a single fight. Not always were the victims feudists; sometimes they were other mountaineers or "Yellow Creekers"; sometimes from the ranks of the newcomers, among whom was the usual ratio of brawlers, criminals, and shady characters. The drinking-places were numerous, and more often than not the trouble occurred in or near one of them. Many were the hard drinkers among all classes, and almost everybody drank to some extent.

        My tent-mate, a middle-aged real estate dealer from the central part of the State, regularly imbibed something like a pint of whiskey before breakfast. On frozen nights--with snow aground and the wind churlishly beating the flaps of the tent, humming through its cordage and sieving up between its cracks of the plank floor-we slept under four or five covers that were as thick as horse-blankets. In such weather his "night-cap" became a busby--a tall one and straight. He would wake about daybreak, lean out from his cot, light the oil heater, and then reach under the cot for the "inner heater"--the quart bottle of Bourbon which he invariably placed there on going to bed. There was a tart pop as he pulled the cork and a familiar gurgle as the fiery liquid surged to the neck of the vessel. The process was repeated at intervals until at length he got up and drew on his boots. He was now primed for breakfast.

        The establishment where we ate and lodged was called the "Hotel encampment." The messhouse, of pine timbers with the bark on, which stood between double rows of tents, was manned by darky cooks and waiters from Knoxville, the chief of the latter of whom was "Laughing John, a jolly negro, fat as Joseph Sedley, who proudly wore in his shirt bosom a faceted glass "diamond" as big as a black walnut. The meals in this rude victualing-place would not, ordinarily, have gladdened a gastronome, but now and then we sat down to some especially toothsame viand. Once this was provided through the occurrence of an unusual incident: A deer wounded by hunters in the mountains had fled, baffled and desperate, into the Valley and was swimming Yellow Creek, then in flood, when a man plunged in to his armpits and dispatched it with a knife. We had venison for several days.

        There were instances of queer human digressions, of inversions of men's characters, in the midst of the fevered bustle and striving of whipping into shape a new community. Certain individuals, who, in the places from which they had come, had never betrayed any tendency to irregular or questionable conduct, seemed to became infected with a feeling of license or unrestraint which put them off equilibrium. Perhaps the force of peccant example became resistless; perhaps some, unaccustomed to wild, natural environment and rugged life, felt a mystical urge toward wild and rugged morals.

        A conspicuous case of this remarkable reversal of behavior was that of a gentleman nearing sixty who, for sake of anonymity, may be called Mr. Torrey. In the city where he had previously lived and I had known him he had been a prominent and respected citizen, irreproachable of habit and a glass of propriety an officer, indeed, of the church. Whether in the unwonted medium in which he now moved he became bewildered and lost poise, or what--explain it as you will--at any rate, some weeks after arrival in Middlesborough, he strangely developed, I was told, a sort of Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde personality, surreptitiously carrying a pistol and drinking inordinately, sometimes getting drunk, although endeavoring to keep his newly-acquired and unfamiliar vices concealed. I could not conciliate all this with the way of his past, and was loath to believe it. One night, rainy and windswept, in the late fall, and unforgettable experience befell me. I had worked at the office till about ten o'clock and on leaving, being without an umbrella, started into a run. Reaching the other side of the street-or rather road, as it could yet hardly be called a street I saw, a few yards away, the dark, motionless contour of a man with raised umbrella, and wondered what he was waiting for on so foul a night, with no one else in sight. An arc light flickered and sputtered nearby, and on approaching closer I made out Mr. Torrey in his invariable cutaway coat and derby. I cordially wished him good evening, and in another instant would have dashed past, but he thrust out his free hand--to my consternation, as he had always seemed to like me--seized me roughly by the shoulder. I was a mere youth at the time.

        "What's your hurry?" he growled thickly-calling me by my first name--and slightly lurched. I glanced into his face and noting additional signs of inebriation, concluded that he was not responsible. Remembering how courteous and mild-mannered a person he had formerly been, his speech and actions shocked me, notwithstanding that I had been prepared, in a way, for the transformation in him. I felt a little uneasy, too, with that grip on my shoulder and that harsh tone echoing in my ears. I explained why I was making haste, and he released his hold, but straightway commanded in a grim and threatening voice: "Don't you move."

        Simultaneously his hand went swiftly to his hip-pocket, and the next moment the nickeling of a revolver glistened in the rays of the electric light. An awful dread came over me, immediately followed by a sensation of pure terror, as he pointed the barrel, only a foot away, directly at my breast. He slowly manipulated the pistol up and down for a few seconds and then remarked, musingly: "I've got a good notion to kill you." With still no other human visible, I stood stiff and immovable, trembling all over, yet managed to gasp: "Why, what have I done, Mr. Torrey?"

"Never mind," he returned. I felt a cold damp beneath my hat-band, and my heart apparently ceased to beat. He appeared to deliberate for a few minutes. "No, I don't believe I will," he finally muttered gruffly, after what had been to me an eternity, and put the weapon back in his pocket. Without another word between us I ran on, though weak with fright, as fast as my legs would carry me. The next day he greeted me pleasantly and apparently retained no recollection of the incident. I did not mention it to him. Quite as strange as his volte-face in conduct was the fact that in about a year he oriented himself and resumed his previous unquestionable manner of life.

        Because of the rigors and the inconveniences and general rough existence, no women or children had yet appeared. Finally, one day, a woman was observed walking along Cumberland Avenue. Her apparition was an event of the first order and made a flurry; men paused and gazed as at some curiosity. She had the distinction of being Middlesborough's first female inhabitant.

        A host of Englishmen, and some Scotch, had followed in Mr. Arthur's wake--hostlers, artisans, clerks, merchants, and members of various professions. There were also "remittance men"--idle and more or less irresponsible scions of prominent families in England who were probably content, and perhaps relieved, to have them at a distance. These, having no occupation, neither toiled nor spun, but passed the time in riding and in hunting wild deer, turkey, and fox, and in pretty heavy drinking.

        In a different category were young chaps of wealthy upper middle-class derivation who were there solely for adventure and a fling of "roughing it." Among the latter were two brothers named Crichton, nephews of N. Storey Maskelyne, M. P., an investor in the Company. Twice yearly Mr. Arthur went to London to render in person his semi-annual formal report to the board of directors, and it was on one of these trips with him, as his secretary, that I first met the young men when they called at the Hotel Metropole. There they were in silk hats, spats, and morning-coats, not to mention monocles and walking-sticks. They made known their intention of going out to his development in "the States" to engage in dairying for an uncertain period. One brother arrived in Middlesborough some weeks ahead of the other and bought a farm about a mile from town, and for a time he and I shared quarters in a small, portable house. When the other brother came, the repaired to the farm. They did their own milking, or assisted employees in doing so, and one drove the milk-wagon, making deliveries to customers. The spectacle of these young fellows, fashionables at home in London, here milking cows, and one of them ringing his bell before houses, drawing the creamy liquid and pouring it into housewives' pitchers, was amusing.

        Gradually coal and iron mines were opened, coke-ovens built, steel mills and blast furnaces put up, and other industries established. A large and luxurious hotel, "The Middlesborough," having risen and several smaller ones become available from time to time, with boarding~houses and residences, by little and little the tent city had melted.

        Within six months after completion of the railroad and Cumberland Gap tunnel and of an extension of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad from Pineville, the principal business street, Cumberland Avenue, had become lined on both sides for a distance of eight or ten blocks with stores and office structures, mostly two-story, though some were three, all, with the exception of a few brick ones, of wood construction, and from this central thoroughfare the town had so spread that it occupied rather compactly more than half the Valley.

        Among the residents at this time were Winthrop E. Scarritt, president of the Coal and Iron Bank, who had come from South Dakota, and who afterwards, when a citizen of New York, was an early president of the Automobile Club of America. Another was 0. W. Davis, coal operator, one of whose sons, Owen--a sturdy youngster then--is the celebrated playwright.

        There had been much activity in private real estate transfers, but the announcement by the Company of a forthcoming sale of town lots at public auction was received with acclaim as foreshadowing an occasion promising roseate opportunities for gain. It was widely advertised, and the result was a large influx of people from all over Kentucky and from other states. Excitement was high during the week of the sales, which were held in the open. Everybody seemed to have succumbed to the fever of speculation, and wild scenes frequently marked the buying and many harvested fat profits.

        Mr. Arthur, then about forty-five and at the top of his powers, was a volcano of energy. he spent much time in the saddle, going from point to point to keep abreast of things, always carrying a small scratch-pad on which to make notes that were the foundation of letters to his subordinates and to the secretary of the board in London. Correspondence with the London office was huge, and sometimes he would start dictating in his quarters at "The Middlesborough" at six in the morning and dispatch a mass of business before breakfast. For lack of prior opportunity he usually was obliged to make up his voluminous half-yearly report on shipboard en route to London.

        His stays there lasted, as a rule, a month or six weeks, but once extended beyond three months when subsidiary companies were being organized, prospectuses framed, and stock floated. The shares of the American Association, Ltd., and Middlesborough Town Lands Company, its principal auxiliary, were listed on the London Stock Exchange and were very active. There were so many titled names in the personnel of the boards of directors that a glance at them produced the illusion of looking down a page of BURKE'S PEERAGE. C. Barclay Holland, son of a director of the Bank of England, was the secretary of both major companies. The chairman of the Association board was Edmund A. Pontifex, a spectacular financial figure at the time in London. he was chairman also of the boards of innumerable other corporations unrelated to the Cumberland Gap enterprises, and was facetiously called "Guinea" Pontifex, in allusion to the honorarium he so frequently received for presiding at a meeting.     

        Mr. Arthur often visited Louisville also--chiefly to confer with counsel, the late Rozel Weissinger--sometimes remaining for several days. His headquarters were at the noble old Galt House, where, by the way, I recall seeing many times in the capacious dining-room, with its large staff of urbane darky waiters, one of Kentucky's best-loved sons, the ruddy-faced, white-locked Colonel Henry Watterson.

        During the absences of Mr. Arthur from Middlesborough, the companies' affairs were carried on by under-officials, who kept him informed by letters, cablegrams, and telegrams. On his first return from London after the town had got under way he was met at the railroad station by a committee of leading citizens and a crowd of lesser ones of both sexes and all ages; they were on-horseback, muleback, in buggies, hacks, afoot. On a big gray horse sat the Baron Anton von Stauffenhausen, a little stout man, with hair a la Pompadour and mustaches bristling like badger-hair shaving-brushes, who ran a small stationery store and who let it be known, confidentially, to a few that he had fallen on financial misfortune in his native Austria. He wore tight-fitting doe-skin trousers disappearing into knee-high glistening patent-leather boots which looked as if they had been bought for the occasion.

        As the train was rolling in, the town band struck up "Hail to the Chief." Mr. Arthur was much taken by surprise and was modestly embarrassed. He turned to me and remarked, "What in the world does all this mean?" Nevertheless, in a short address from the steps of the car, he expressed appreciation and told of his plans for the continued progress of Middlesborough and for broadening the scope of the various

companies operating under the aegis of the Association. The committee then escorted him to "The Middlesborough." If some features of the welcome were in questionable taste, without doubt it was all hearty and sincere tribute, though privately disapproved by Mr. Arthur himself.

        About three months afterward two men from Cincinnati came along and took the purple "Baron" away. They were detectives and had spotted him in his stationery store--a blind, they said. He was an international swindler, with a magazine of aliases.

        "The Middlesborough," by the way, was the center of social life. Here took place the dances and balls, with their favors and punch-bowls, and their string-bands from Louisville or Cincinnati. Among the dancers on a certain occasion was a young lady bearing a proud Kentucky name. An illness had temporarily taken her hair, and she wore a wig, which, in the midst of the dance, loosened and fell to the floor, to her unspeakable horror and mortification. Once, on the "grand stairway," a husband was restrained only by the strongest efforts of an intermediary from shooting a man for alleged attentions to his beautiful wife. Here, too, a callow, scatter-brained young Englishman of notable family made his initial marriage proposal to a buxom mulatto lady's-maid and by reason of the pertinacity of his suit was recalled home by his father.

        One spring morning in 1890 about ten o'clock I was at work in the Association office building, which commanded a view for a considerable distance along Cumberland Avenue, when my attention was attracted by shouts and other sounds of a commotion. Looking up I saw large flames, accompanied by dense masses of black smoke, bursting from the top floor of a store a couple of blocks away, and men rushing excitedly about the sidewalks and in the roadway. I called to Mr. Arthur, sitting nearby, and he clapped on his hat and rushed forth. A strong breeze was driving the flames almost across the thoroughfare; burning fragments of some size fell upon roofs opposite, and these buildings, too, soon

caught. Live sparks were being carried to structures far beyond the main business section and ignited them. Under the circumstances the fire-fighting apparatus, which was only nominal, proved practically useless.

        Frantic merchants along the entire avenue began furiously to empty their stores with the aid of employees, carrying goods to what were considered places of safety. The contents of saloons also, of which there were numbers, were piled in heaps in the center of the street--bottles, case-goods, and what not--while whiskey barrels were rolled out alongside. Fearing a drunken riot and acts of lawlessness by the hoodlum and abandoned elements, citizens of standing, Mr. Arthur among them, procured hammers and axes and lay about shattering bottles and bursting barrels. The gutters ran with drink, and I saw men here and there on their knees, swilling it up.

        Within two hours Cumberland Avenue was ablaze from end to end, with many buildings already burnt down. Flame met flame in a fiery arch until the whole was a vast imperious furnace, crackling and roaring, fed by the tinder of wooden materials and whipped into fury by the wind. The conflagration had now spread for several blocks beyond the avenue, reducing residences and other fabrics. By mid-afternoon it had burned itself out, and the better part of the town had been annihilated. In the charred and blackened desolation it was difficult to fix where such and such had stood. "The Middlesborough," being out of range, escaped, and still stands today on its "hill retir'd." so ended the first phase of the "boom town--a phase, it may be said, which nettled the founder, who, on sundry occasions, vehemently protested that he had never intended Middlesborough to be such.

        Mr. Arthur cable to London of the disaster and asked for loans to the fire sufferers to enable the business area to be rebuilt. Assurances were promptly given that these would be made. The citizens took heart. In about a year's time, out of the ashes of the dead city of ligneous construction, a new one was lifted up of safer and more enduring stuff, and another epoch was auspiciously entered upon. The future was fronted with cheerful hope, and even with enthusiasm.

        Meanwhile a short distance from Cumberland Gap, in Tennessee, the new town of Harrogate (named for Harrogate in England), another Arthurian enterprise, was building up. Mr. Arthur planned that Harrogate should be to Middlesborough as Tuxedo Park to New York--an exclusive and abstracted place of residence combining more or less pastoral surroundings with the conveniences and elegancies of sumptuous life in town, and there on a luxurious estate staffed by English help he himself, with his family, went to live.     

        Upon a slight elevation at the base of a ridge, and not far from the Arthur place, had just been built the great "Four Seasons Hotel," representing an outlay of a million dollars. it looked upon one of the fairest of prospects, including a long sweep, extending many miles, of the blue Cumberlands. The hotel opened with a gorgeous ball, and the presence at that function and during the succeeding festivities, which lasted several days, of a crowd of persons of eminent social position started the hotel on its career with distinguished sanction and high prestige. Among those who went down from New York in a long train of Pullman coaches was Mrs. Paran Stevens, co-leader with Ward McAllister

of the "Four Hundred."

        London stock-brokers especially interested in the companies' shares, as well as members of English shareholds, came to Middlesborough from time to time to look the ground over, and the British Iron and Steel Institute in a body stayed there some days during a tour of the industrial section of the United States.

        Now and then personages appeared, among them, the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough (formerly Mrs. Lily Hamersley, of New York). The bearer of the title of the hero of Blenheim came in one morning with Mr. Arthur to the latter's office. He was a man of short stature, with Roman nose and rather rotund figure, and had on riding clothes. He shook hands with me, and I felt signally honored, being quite young at the time. "Your Grace, " Mr. Arthur styled him. But a prominent real estate dealer of large from and stentorian voice, who happened in, took ff his hat and said with great vigor and good fellowship: "Duke, howdy, sir! I'm glad to meet you." Before leaving the city the Duke had his little joke and dubbed Mr. Arthur "Duke of Middlesborough."

        Subsequently the Earl of Dysart and party made a sojourn of about a week. The late Viscount Bryce--then James B. Bryce, M.P.--one--time British ambassador to the United States, author of many economic, sociological, and political works, and pre-eminently of THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH, was also a visitor. Apparently he deemed the opening up of natural resources and the dawn of industrial activity in a region hitherto unexploited worthy of critical study, not only in themselves but as constituting an adventure of magnitude, by one of British extraction who had become a discoverer of opportunity which Americans had either overlooked or considered negligible. On the departure of the illustrious publicist Arthur accompanied him as far as Knoxville, providing his private car for the journey.

        Such visits contributed to the sanguine outlook, which was not, however, to last long. At its height the citizens were thrown into consternation by a calamity which, though originating in London, sent devastating vibrations four thousand miles away to Middlesborough, ruined large numbers of people there, and doomed the town to years of stagnation. Like a thunderbolt out of clear sky came, one day in 1890, the news of the failure of the Barring Brothers Bank of London, in which many English who were investors in one or more of the companies lost heavily.

        It was soon apparent that large industrial plants, in being or prospective, upon which Middlesborough had much depended, would have to be dropped, and that promises of additional funds from London, which had been the heart pumping the lifeblood into the city's arteries, could not be fulfilled.

        The inhabitants were seized with panic. Swollen property values suffered a tremendous contraction, and one of the largest real estate operators became insane from his losses. People thronged away as at first they had thronged in. In a short time the town was bereft of more than half its population. Only those stayed on who either had not been completely disabled by the catastrophe or whose affairs required the waiting attitude of Mr. Micawber. The Crichton brothers, dillettante dairy-farmers, turned homeward; so did the "remittance men," teeming with Odysseys with which, over brandies and sodas in the clubs of Pall Mall and Piccadilly, to fill the ears of the stay-at-homes. The bones of a few of the English remained in the Valley--among them, those of Colonel Arthur C. Chester Master and of young Valentine Joseph Blake, son of Sir Valentine Blake, of Menlough Castle, Ireland. But the living repatriated themselves almost to a man, many broken in fortune and in spirit. One Britisher of high standing was in such a condition of physical decline that a local physician was engaged to accompany him to London, and a coffin was taken aboard ship for use in case he should die on the way.

         Despite its brilliant opening, the accessory grandeur and state-talked of for years afterward and still a legend-the vast and rambling "Four Seasons Hotel" at Harrogate had been practically from the beginning a lonely, soundless wilderness of empty rooms. The wealthy from the cities could not be attracted; those in Middlesborough preferred to continue living there. As for the native, of course he had not been even thought of as a possible well of revenue. Indeed he dared advance only within good, comtenplative distance and halt in his tracks, daunted by the enormous proporations and reported inner magnificence of the fabulous pile, but more than these by the storied segars costing not less

than twenty cents and the unimaginable whiskey at a quarter a drink. Although he may have itched to feast his eyes on the wonders its walls enclosed, to him they remained as Carcassonne to the French peasant of Nadaud's famous ballad. Within two years from the time of its completion the structure was torn down, and the remains sold to a Chicago contractor for twenty-five thousand dollars.

        A certain tacit irony lies in the peculiar circumstance that, on the site of the ill-fated hostelry which blossomed for a day and died without a stone being left to mark where it had made its fleeting stand against a dogging and invincible adversity, there rest today some of the buildings of Lincoln Memorial University, the mountaineers' seminary. The others are scattered about the original grounds, and the former Arthur mansion serves now as the Conservatory of Music. The raw, unpolished highlander in his timidity could not bring himself so far as to cross the threshold of the lordly caraveansary; but here is an institution that invites him and is dedicated to his education and social and economic improvement.

        Middlesborough drooped, languished, became thoroughly enervated and in the course of time reached nadir--that is, lapsed into an inveterately torpid mountain town apparently resigned to its fate. Its star, it seemed, had set. A burst of partial vitality infused it on Saturday afternoons and nights when the miners in boots and torch-crested caps slouched down from the big hills to "liquor-up" and incidentally to trade. An occasional pistol battle in the street would galvanize the immediate vicinage, and there was an ebullition of pure, child-like jubilee humor when some third-rate circus appeared with its crew of tough men and hardened women and its shabby and mildewed accessories. But the settled condition-sequel of the collapse of material values and crash of industry--was one of lethargy and almost paralysis. Weeds grew here and there in the little-used roadways; a stranger was a curiosity. Some few manufacturing plants had survived; others, partly finished when the disaster fell, had been dismantled, and the salvaged materials sold for a song.

        That was the second phase. It lasted many years. The third began with Middlesborough's recovery after far drawn-out convalescence. Having been successively an inflated and deflated boom town, it is now and long has been a normal, prosperous community. Mountains ring it about, and on every side the eye is greeted with natural beauty. It has the Dixie Highway, which passes also through Cumberland Gap, and other raids camparable with any for excellence are plentiful. Much of the population is now indigenous, and to that extent there is a topical or regional stamp upon it, as in many other sections of the United States with its heterogeneous types. This very circumstance contributes to render its ethos as American as America; the only vestige of the "foreign occupation" consists in the nomenclature of the streets, nearly all of whose names were taken from England. But the customs and social code of the native have been for decades in process of gradual relinquishment in favor of those of the other inhabitants, which supposedly reflect the standard. At Lincoln Memorial University the young

mountaineer is moulded more or less to this form, but the result is largely achieved by what he sees independently. A sharp observer, he notes for himself the conduct, manners, and technique of the "city man" and, as a rule deeming them superior, becomes, in general, a conformist, or, as the unyielding Bourbons among the stock regard him, a deserted, an apostate to his kind. He is gradually losing his tribal tang and highland picturesqueness.

        Alexander A. Arthur found Yellow Creek Valley a desert, a wild. He covered it with homes and places of business and manufacture. He built railroads into Southeastern Kentucky and constructed the great Cumberland Gap tunnel. All these works existed first only in his imagination--in the form of thought. He realized them. he was one of Kentucky's great benefactors. He too left after the financial breakdown, and for many years lived in New York. He finally returned to Middlesborough--to die. He died March 4, 1912. He was born in Montreal, August 30, 1846. His tomb, a few paces from Colonel David G. Colson's, is in a lonely burying-ground on the crown of a hill below which Daniel Boone is reputed to have passed. The hill partly overlooks the town, and the timeless mountains that knew the ages preceding man over-peer all.

        Howard J. Douglas, Secretary Chamber of Commerce, Middlesborough, Kentucky, furnished the writer the following list of business men and the business they operate today in Middlesborough. They are as follows:     Photo H.J. Douglas

        Alexander and Pace Garage, Manager D. R. Alexander; Allen Lumber Company, Hugh Allen, Manager; American Association, C. W. Rhodes, Manager; Mrs. Maude Allison Grocery, Mrs. Maude Allison, Proprietor; Anderson Hardware Company, W. Sam Anderson, Manager; J. W. Archer Grocery, J. W. Archer, Proprietor; J. 0. Armstrong Insurance, J. 0. Armstrong, Manager; Dr. Paul Armstrong, Dentist; Atlas Coal Company; Dr. A. G. Barton, Optometrist; Bell Printing Company, J. Warren Cunningham, Manager; Blue Bell Globe Manufacturing Company, W. A. Snyder, Manager; Dr. J. H. Brooks, Dentist; Burnett Brothers, Plumbing, John Burnett, Manager; E. M. Butcher, Grocery, E. M. Butcher,

Proprietor; Cairnes Coal Mining Company, Mrs. Joe Sweeney, Manager; W. J. Callison Company, George M. Callison, Manager, Furniture and Funeral Directors; A. D. Campbell GO-Ready to Wear, Lee F. Campbell, Manager; T. H. Campbell Brothers, Men's Furn., T. H. Campbell, Properietor; Cardwell and Shoffner, Furniture, A. C. Cardwell, Proprietor; Cawood Funeral Home, Hobart Cawood, Proprietor; Chattanooga Armature Works, Guy McKenzie, Manager; City Cash Market, Fruits and Vegetables, Clarence Greer, Manager; City Coal and Transfer Company, L. W. Wilson, Manager; Coca Cola Bottling Works, Neil Barry, Manager; Coffee Pot, Restaurant, Louis Kalfas, Manager; Comer Radio Service, E. M. Comer, Proprietor; Cumberland Beauty Shoppe, Mrs. Clarence Jennings, Proprietress; Cumberland Hotel, E. M. Foor, Manager; Cumberland Valley Credit Bureau, Harold Locke, Manager; Dixie Hardware Company, Garfield Drinnon, manager; Dr. Goldie Horr Eagle, Chiropodist; Dr. J. P. Edmonds, eye, ear, nose and throat; Emmett's Cash Grocery, Guy Emmett, Proprietor; Evans Hospital, Drs. W. K. and T. J. Evans, in charge; Fair Store, Robert Euster, Proprietor; Farmers Supply Company; Fork Ridge Coal and Coke Company, C. W. Rhodes, General Manager; Gagle Radio Service, M. S. Gagle, manager; Gibson Music Company, W. H. Gibson, proprietor; Gibson Oil and Gas Corporation, Karl N. Harris, Manager; Dr. Schultz Gibson, Dentist; Ginsburg Department Store, Harry Ginsburg, Proprietor; Gulf Refining Company (Bulk), Lee Rennebaum, Manager; Hackney-Jellico Company, E. T. Moore, Manager; Dr. D. A. Hartwell, Chiropractor; J. R. Hoe and Sons, Homer L. Hoe, Manager; Holland Furnace Company, J. W. Graft, Manager; Hopson Dental Laboratory; Hubbard Insurance Agency, Mrs. M. G. Hubbard, Manager; Ideal Cleaners and Dyers, Monty Goforth, Manager; Indian Refining Company; Inman Studio, Jack Inman, proprietor; Iovine Dry Cleaners, C. J. Iovine, Proprietor; Jenkins Cash Grocery, Ralph Jenkins, Proprietor; Joe Johnston Grocery, Joe Johnston, Proprietor; Justice Grocery, Joe Johnston, Proprietor; Justice Grocery, Regan Justice, Proprietor; Kentucky Armature and Motor Works, J. W. Wilson, Manager; Kentucky-Virginia Stone Company, W. B. Paynter, Manager; Harry Latiff Grocery, Harry Latiff, Proprietor; Sam Latiff Grocery, Sam Latiff, Proprietor; Frank L. Lee and Company, Drugs, Frank L. Lee, Proprietor; Lee Tailoring Company, J. R. Haslit, Proprietor; Lyon and Fox Motor Company, John W. Lyon, Manager; R. L. Maddox, Attorney; Majestic Hotel, Joe Tamer, Manager; J. L. Manring Company, Insurance, John Chesney, Manager; Martin Brothers, Elastic Mfgrs., Horace C. Martin, Manager; McLean Studio, Edith Mclean, Manager; Middlesborough Bakery, W. W. Haynes, Manager; Middlesborough Daily News, C. H. Arundel, Editor; Middlesborough Feed and Seed Company; Middlesborough Hardware Company, W. B. Fugate, Manager; Middlesborough Hotel, Lee Rennebaum, Proprietor; Middlesborough Liquor and Wine Company, George Blincoe, Manager; Middlesborough Hospital, Dr. C. K. Broshear and Dr. U. G. Brumment, and Dr. Jacob Schultz, in charge; Middlesborough Milling Company, W. C. Broadwater, Manager; Middlesborough Steam Laundry, A. P. Liebig, Manager; Middlesborough Wholesale Grocery Company, H. K. Milburn, Plumbing; Modern Equipment Company, Elect. Supls., C. Y. Blakeman, Manager; Moore Chevrolets, J. L. Moore, Manager; Dr. H. E. Motch, Dentist; Motch Motor Company, W. D. Motch, Manager; Nehi Bottling Company, William Ralston, Manager; New York Restaurant, George Zaharias, Proprietor; E. P. Nicholson, Jr., Attorney; S. Owsley and Sons, Cecil and John Owsley, Proprietors; Pinnacle Motors, Inc., C. Y. Blakeman, Manager; Dr. R. F. Porter, Physician; Premier Coal Company, Capt. W. E. Cabell, Manager; Pure Oil Company, Ike Sharp, Manager; Dr. Frank Queener, Physician; Warren P. Rash, Wholesale Candy and Drugs; Reams Hardware Campany, S. M. Reams, Manager; Reams Lumber Company, W. Hobart Reams, Manager; Milton Reese Coal Yard, Milton Reese,

Manager; Rennebaum Coal Company, Lee Rennebaum, Manager; Arthur Rhorer, Attorney; S & S Coal Company, E. G. Sheafer, Manager; J. F.

Schneider and Son Grocery, George Schneider, Manager; Sharp's Food Market, Vernon Sharp, Proprietor; Shoffner and Company Grocery, G. W. Shoffner, Proprietor; Sinclair Refining Company; A. B. Snyder and Son, A. B. Snyder, Manager; Standard Oil Company, R. H. Barker, Manager; Sterchi Brothers, A. M. Terrell, Manager; Susong's, Florist, Guy Suson, Proprietor; G. H. Talbott Company, George Talbott, Manager; H. H. Tamer, Dry Goods, H. H. Tamer, Proprietor; Kemp Thompson Company, Wholesale Candies, Kemp Thompson, Manager; Three States Printing Office, H. C. Chappell, Manager; Union Tanning Company, Fred Seale, Manager; Union Transfer and Storage Company, Clifford Wilson, Manager; Verrans, Ladies Ready to Wear, H. E. Verran, Proprietor; White Furniture Company, Mrs. Roberta White, proprietor; Wilson and Cluxton, Electrical Service, Elton Cluxton, Manager; Dr. C. L. Woodridge, Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat; Yoakum Drug Company, Lon Yoakum, Proprietor; Yoakum and Gibson Plumbing Company, Silous Yoakum and C. A. Gibson, Managers; Zim's Drug Store, Theodore Zimmerman, Proprietor.