For centuries the Catawba River rolled its waters calmly through North and South Carolina to the sea. Indians and white men fished in it, and used it as a means to travel with their canoes, but until some 20 years ago, the aid of the mighty giant that slept beneath those waters was not invoked by mankind.
But today the Catawba River is turning the wheels of 300 cotton mills and keeping five million spindles busy turning cotton into cloth. There are now nine waterpower stations on the Catawba with a capacity of 420,000 horsepower and a storage capacity of 175,000,000,00 (175 million or billion?) gallons of water According to A.C. Lee of the engineering staff of the Southern Power company, “the Catawba River, with two new developments now under construction, will be probably the finest example in America, or in the world, for that matter, of the intensive and intelligent development of a great natural resource.”
Much of this development has come in the last decade. In 1915, the waters of the Catawba were furnishing power for only 15 cotton mills with less than 175,000 spindles. Today, in addition to the 300 mills served, numerous other industries are provided with power, and many cities and towns of the section are furnished with electricity for lighting and other domestic uses.
The Catawba presents the spectacle of a mighty river completely harnessed, or nearly so, to perform the labor of mankind. There are hundreds of other streams in this and other sections of the country that have similar possibilities. To place their powers at man’s service is one of the most important and necessary tasks of invested capital of the next decade.
From the Greensville, S.C., News, as reprinted on page 5 of the News Reporter, Whiteville, N.C., Oct. 23, 1924
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn85042236/1924-10-23/ed-1/seq-5/
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