His many friends—and that includes every one of his large acquaintance—will very much appreciate the following tribute paid to our fellow townsman, Mr. J.F. Alexander, by the Tourist News, published at St. Petersburg, Fla.:
J.F. Alexander was born and raised on a farm near Forest City, N.C. His early memories are mostly of the strict economy necessitated by his father’s fortune having been swept away by the Civil War. The school days that could be spared from hard work were spent in a little country school house and finished with a full course in the city high. The hard, unremitting toil in his father’s sawmill, with an old-time upright saw capable of cutting only 5,000 feet a day, was never thought of as the beginning of an annual “cut” of 16 times as many million feet.
The first mill owned by Mr. Alexander was a “circular” saw supposed to cut 8,000 feet a day, but 6,000 would come nearer to the actual output. After a long time another mill was added, then another, and another, until now he and his associates own about 130 mills, from which they ship out annually from 80 to 100 million feet of finished lumber and “dimension cut.” It is almost unbelievable that this could be accomplished in 25 years, but it has been and the story is not nearly finished, either. They own large cotton plantations, with gins and mills, capable of a tremendous output.
Mr. Alexander is at the head of the Alexander Manufacturing Company, making 30,000 pounds of cotton yarns a week. He is also interested in a long list of banks, including the Central National of this city, of which he is a director. His large loan and realty interests here are but an expression of his affection for and interest in the city that cancelled his home doctor’s indefinite engagement. That was nine years ago. The incomparable climate, clean social atmosphere, and the restfulness of the green-bench spirit, with the assistance of undeniable opportunity, were the winning factors in turning the overflow of profits this way.
The Alexander Hotel, with its electric sign perched high in the darkness of the night; Grove Heights, one of the city’s fine subdivisions; the ownership in upwards of 500 feet of inside Central Avenue frontage, and the vast amount of buying and building made possible by loans, are expressive of his faith in the future of the city that makes accomplishment attractive.
Born of true Southern parentage and direct Colonial ancestry, three of the latter having signed the Declaration of Independence, the family history is interesting indeed. The father fought for the Confederate cause and, while in Florida to care for a dying relative, served in the war against the Seminole Indians. The years of “reconstruction,” too, would add interesting pages. Mr. Alexander was too busy for the luxury of serious courtship until since coming here for the well-earned vacation. In 1915 he was married to Miss Kathleen Young, the daughter of a prominent physician in Forest City, N.C. They and their two children enjoy winter-summer life at the Alexander and “Bob’s” “Home of Good Eats.”
From the front page of The Forest City Courier, March 30, 1922
No comments:
Post a Comment