Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/572

 512 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 100 miles south of St. Louis on the ilississippi river. It is divided into two parts, the greater portion of the countj* being in the Ozark plateau, but part of the southern half is in the alluvial bottoms of the ilississippi river. At one time a large part of the eountj' was heavily timbered, ilost of this timber has been removed, however, and the land is in cultivation. There are some small tracts of oak and gum. but the timber is no longer of £ny very great value. The area of the county is 5-10 square miles, more than two-thirds of which is under cultivation. The soil of the county is productive even on the hills. In the bottoms of the ^lississippi and other streams the land is very rich. The principal products are those of the farm. Some lum- ber is shipped out. amounting to four million feet in 1910. There is no coal mined in the county, but large quantities of lime stone is quarried and there are a few kaolin pits, and in some places crystal sand is taken out for glass manufacturing purposes. There are a number of manufacturing es- tablishments, wood working plants, miUs. shoe factory, and a large cement plant; besides these there are some important quarries where large quantities of lime stone are re- moved. The conntj-, exclusive of the city of Cape Girardeau, produced manufactured products in 1910. amounting to $4,150,667. The larg- est single item was flour. In the same year the city of Cape Girardeau had products amounting to $2,773,432, the largest single item being shoes. The population of the coiinty is 27.621 and the assessable valuation $174,382. There are 80 school districts in the county employing 140 teachers, and the school system is a well organized one. The county has the Third District State Normal school. St. Vincent's college and academy at Cape Girardeau. There are good high schools at Jackson and Cape Girardeau. The coimty seat is Jackson, which is a thriving prosperous town, and the largest town is Cape Girardeau, with a population of about 9,000. Besides, there are the following towns: AllenviUe, Appleton, Burfordvills, Dutchtown. Egypt ^lills. Fruitland. Gordon- ville. iMillersville, Xeeleys Landing, Oak Ridge, Pocahontas and Whitewater. The coimty is well supplied with transportation facilities. Besides the ^Mississippi river there are the following railroads: St. Louis, Iron ilountain & Southern. St. Louis & San Fran- cisco. St. Louis Southwestern and the Cape Girardeau & Chester. Carter county is one countj- north of the Arkansas line and is five west of the ilissis- sippi river. It has an area of 323.000 acres, much of which is still timbered. There are three different classes of land in the county, hiU land, table land and creek bottoms. Sev- enty-five per cent of the land in the hills is rocky and at least one-fourth of the area of the covmty is still unimproved. The princi- pal productions are farm products and tim- ber, there having been thirteen million feet of lumber shipped out in 1910. besides large quantities of railroad ties and posts. The largest sawmill in the state is at Grandin. It has a capacity of 2S5.000 feet a day and em- ploys more than 1,200 men. The total of manufactured products in 1910 was $316,070. The soil is adapted to fruit growing and the probabilities are that within the not dis- tant future there wiU be large orchards in the county. !Much iron ore is found in two dif- ferent sections of the county and there are traces of lead and copper, but not in sufficient quantities to warrant their being mined.