Dubois County, Indiana - Chapter 8: Transportation, Products, Manufactured Goods, Population and, 1896

Wealth

In the early days of the settlement of almost any territory, the means of transportation was water, either ocean, bay, lake or river. Nearly all the older, larger cities in the United States have water communication, not now exclusively used, but such communication had much to do with their settlement and prosperity.

So with the settlement of Dubois County. Portersville and Jasper, each in its turn, becaiije the county seat, because a river was at hand. White and Patoka Rivers served for many years as a means of transporting products of the county to Memphis, New Orleans, and other cities in the lower country. Flat boats - long, narrow, low crafts - propelled by hand-power, and the natural flow of the over-flowed rivers carried staves, hoop-poles, bacon, beans, corn, flour, dried fruits and various other products. They usually left Jasper or Portersville during the high waters incident to the spring rains. They were a means of giving strong young men an opportunity of seeing something of the world.

In 1819, Col. Simon Morgan and Jacob Harbison took a flat-boat load of pork from Portersville to New Orleans, and returned on foot, a distance of more than seven hundred miles. In those days there were but few steamboats on the Mississippi River.

After i860, small steamboats occasionally carried products from Portersville. These two styles of boats carried products out of the county. The manufactured articles and groceries were carried by wagon to the county from Troy and Loogootee ; or, Louisville, by way of the pike at Paoli.

A railroad was finally built from Rockport to Jasper, and the first locomotive and train came to the county seat on February 14. 1879. It was a great day for Jasper, schools dismissed and the children headed by their teachers and a brass band, went down to the track to see the train arrive and wonder at its dignity. The band played "Hail Columbia! Happy Land" until one of the pupils fell into the big drum. All voted the locomotive the biggest and best valentine ever received at Jasper. Toward the construction of this road Bainbridge township, and her citizens gave $37,800. They had been agitating the question of railroad communication since the close of the Civil War.

A few years later the main line of the Louisville, Evansville & St. Louis Railroad was built through the county, thus giving a better means of transportation.

The county was originally covered with a dense forest of walnut, oak, poplar, beech, ash, gum, hickory, and many other hard wood trees. Its timber was excellent, and more than $3,000,000 worth was disposed of. The forests gradually fell under the swing of the woodman's axe. Thousands of trees were cut down and destroyed by fire to clear the land for cultivation. Many were cut into saw-logs and floated down the rivers to the timber markets of the south. After the construction of the railroads, train-loads

That part of Dubois county lying west of a straight Ime drawn from Haysville, on White river, and passing the Ackerman, Hopkins and Alexander school-houses, down to Patoka river, is the garden spot of the county. Here lie its valuable farm lands. The middle portion of the country contains its factories, and the eastern part its timber interest.

On the north, Wh'te river passes along the county, over a meri'dional distance of about twelve miles. Patoka river flows through the county from east to west. It is a very sluggish stream, and when its banks are half full its fall is less than one foot in a mile. It flows for nearly one hundred miles through Dubois County.

The county has many coal beds. All that are worked are operated by slopes, except at Huntingburg where a shaft has been dug. Some of the coal is excellent.

At St. Anthony is one of the largest and best brown stone quarries in the state. A layer of this stone begins near the Tretter school house in Ferdinand township and extends north to near Dubois.

In the various factories of the county are manufactured organs, suckerrods, handsome colored pressed brick, shmgles, veneers, secretaries or desks, engines, boilers, bicycles, spokes, headings, staves, hoops, furniture, and many other things that are shipped to many parts of the world.

A Boone Township Home. Residence of Ex-Sheriff Albert H. Traylor, four miles west of where his great grandfather built the first log cabin in Dubois County.