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Montgomery’s Memory-Ha|inted Exchange Hotel j Succumbs to Modern Prog'ress ^ ^ | By PAUL UNGpLty. Written for “Ghm Sunny South AST “moving day” in the • historic little city of Montgomery, Ala., wit nessed the destruction of the old Exchange hotel, the building which has seen more of the state’s public and social. ~~ ITttr~~ than any other wnniii its borders, and ‘ the most historic place of public entertainment in the south. The first day of October is known in Montgomery a a “moving day.” On that day take place practically all the changes, whether of business or residence, occurring in the twelve month. One not pleased with his location will be careful to secure a claim on another before the end of September, for in t «e general unsettling and settling again of “moving day,” the changing of homes and offices, and the abandonment and demolition of old buildings and beginning of new ones, there will be little or noth ing left. Last moving day, October I, 1904, was memorable in that it marked the sacri fice before the Insatiate demand for the “modern and, up to date” of one more of the land marks of our history. The south, which has shown itself singularly wanting in the • sentiment so long ac credited to it, might. * it would seem, have cared to preserve tills particular one. notable as no other, unless. Indeed, it be the Alabama state capitol. But no.' The Exchange could not be made fireproof, it could be remodelled, and im proved to a degree of present accepta bility; but Montgomery needed a hos telry equal with that of other cities and suited to har growing demands, one that could be offered the exacting pub lic for years. The Exchange site was the best possible, the old hotel was in adequate. could not be made fireproof; so rather than put money into it, better to raze the old structure and erect cMhe, steel frame and fireproof, ami new from the foundations up. -• So they went to work to tear down the old house, and something of a job It proved, too. Fifty and seventy-live years ago they did not build for a day, it was honest labor * that brought honest re sults, durability and a soundness which it remains to ■ be seen was inferior to our more modern arid vaunted methods. When the work began of pulling down the walls, they refused to come down. From three to four feet thick in places they were as hand as adamant, and the labor necessary to their demolition was both difficult and tedious. The bricks that went into them were hand made, a brick' making machlnfe bought ' for the contract having been thrown away a* a farfure—arid time had only served to solidify and strengthen, them. So perfect are, they still, a part are be- ' ing used in the new Exchange now go ing up. and the whole building' was In such thorough preservation it ,might have stood tpr an indefinite time. The great columns, six feet in, dia- ' meter, which gave to the old structure its classic and magnificent appearance, were only prevented from being' used by reason of their height—the ,n,ew ho tel will be eight stories, where the old was but four. The old Exchange and the Alabama capltol were so closely linked together the two must be inseparably associated in history. When in IS45 the legislat ure ratified the removal of the capltol from Tuskaloosa, Montgomery outbid ding other competitors, agreed to erect a 375,000 capltol, and to transfer Lie. effects of the state hither—which it did; In thirteen wagons, and 113 boxes, .at a cost, to itself of 31,325, having all in readiness for' the session of 1847, which convened in-' December. A Tew month* later the contract for the chapge .. hotel, -was, give* -.to- _tb» --» firm that had builded the capltol. At this time Montgomery was a c try town, the center of a cotton ivnd agricultural district, and withofa roi.- road connection with the world, its com munication being by the river and by stage coach, and with a white popula tion of less than six thousand. Yet the same prophetic vision which led An drew Dexter when he offered his free lots in 1817, to set aside the crest of Goat Hill (since Capitol Hill) for the site of the state capltol he believed would some day rest there, the same faith in the future of the place, lived in the breasts of three of. its citizens thirty years later, and led to. the building of a hotel, seemingly out of all proportion ' .to the patronage it could reasonably ex pect.- These three prominent citizens, Charles T. Pollard, Francis M. Gilmer, and 'William Holt, erected at a cost of between 350.000 and 3100,000. a hotel of one hundred rooms, a really splendid building and, as it ■ turned out, a fine investment. ‘ HOTEL IS CAPITOL. About eighteen months afterward, and just two. years after the Installation of the legislature into its handsome new quarters, ‘while that body was In session, the majority of its members being domi ciled in the Exchange, fire broke out In the capltol, and though it was 1 o’clock mm In the day, when under favorable condi tions the flames might have been con trolled, the efforts of the citizens were unavailing and the building was burned to the ground. Thereafter, until it was rebuilt, the legislature sat in the Ex change hotel. Besides being the home, during the ses sion. of the members, it was also that of the governor. With the exception of Governor Jones, who owned a place here, every governor of Alabama since Mont gomery was made the capital has had his residence in the Exchange. And dur ing the sixty years of its hospitable exist ence aii the distinguished men and wom en who visited the state were guests there; the representative wit and culture of the land found gracious entertainment; thither repaired the Dest and_ finest of the south's statesmanship and most ar dent patrotism; and within its walls were enacted some of the most stirring events which illuminate the pages of history. Among the noted men to whom the old place extended its hospitality prior to the sixties was James K. Polk, who came the year the capitol was burned; Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, In 1852; and Millard Fillmfire, In 1854. Mr. Fill more was accompanied by John P. Ken nedy. who had been secretary of the navy during his administration, better known as- the author of that thrilling old ro mance “Horse Shoe Robinson.’’ The ac- ■our»r ?" the enthusiastic receptions given the (wo resemble that accorded LaFayette twehtjj-seven years earlier. Arriving on the steamer “Magnolia,” they were met by a large concourse of citizens, which lined the river bank, thp two military companies being drawn up in line and firing salutes, and being driven to the capitol in a coach and four, accompanied by the welcoming throng, the guests and escort, alighted at the foot of the terrace and advanced to the entrance through two lines of little girls, dressed in white, who literally strewed the path with flow ers. After the exercises they then re paired to the Exchange hotel, where the visitors were treated to southern hospi tality at its best, Alabama hospitality and at tfs famous Exchange. It was in this year that the Laniers took the hotel. Sterling Lanier, grand father of Sydney Lanier, the poet, and of Clifford Lariler, also man of letters, had come some time before from New York, where the Hotel LeFarge, of which he was proprietor, had burned, and ■faken charge of Montgomery hall, the first hos telry of any pretensions which • the town had. Under the management of this far- famed host, which covered that exciting period culminating in the secession of the southern states and the four months when Montgomery was the capital of the confederacy, the Exchange achieved CONTINUED ON THIRD PAGE. HEW EXCHANGE HOTEL BUILDING HOnTCOMEKT, ALABAMA. WILLIS r. DKMHY. Architect. Atlanta, Georgia. j &/?eHero of Pago Bridge A Series of Humorous Stories by Gelett Burgess and Will Irwin Y name is Admen Drake. Mine ain’t a story book yarn like yours, pardner, or a tale of spooks ar.d phantoms. like yours. You can get away from gliosts when there's other people around or it's day. light, but there’s some things that you can’t get away from in a thous and years, daylight or dark. A fellow that I knew from the P. L. outfit loaned me a story book once by "The Duchess,” that said something like this, only in a story book language: ”A woman is the start and finish of ail our troublts.’’ I always remembered Unit. It was a right nice idea. Many and many's the time that, thinking over my troubles. I’ve remembered those sentiments. Su sie Latham, that is the finest lady in the White river country, she was the start and finish of my troubles. Ever since we were both old enough to chew hay Susie and I traveled as a team. The first time that I ever shone in society I did it with Susie bv my • side. It was right good of her to go with me, seeing that l wa s only bound- boy to old man Mullins, who brought me up and educated me. and Susie's father kept a store. But then we were too little to care about such things, me being 11 r.nd Susie 9. It was the mum social of the First Baptist church that I took her to. You know the sort? When the boss Sunday school man gives the signal you clap the stopper on your jaw tackle and get fined a cent a word If you peep. Susie knew well enough that I had only 5 cents left after I got in, so what does She do but go out and sit on the porch while the talk is turned off, so that she wouldn’t put me in the hole. When they passed the grabbag I blew in the nickel. I got a kid brass ring with a red glass front and gave It to her. Isald that It was for us to get married when we crew up. ••Wily. Admeh Drake, I like your gall. * she said, but she took it just the same. After that Susie was my best girl and I was her beau. I licked every fellow that said she wasn’t pretty, and she stuck out 'her tongue to every girl that tried to Joke me because I was old Mul lins’ bound-boy. We graduated from striped Rock Union High School to gether. That was where I spent the hap py hour s running wild among the flowers in my boyhood’s happy home down on the farm. After that she went to teach ing school, and I struck first principles and punched cattle down on old Mul lins’ X Q X ranch. Says I to myself. I'll have an interest here myself some time. and then married HI be to Susie if she’ll but name the day. I had only . six months before I was to be out of bound to old Mullins. Being a darn fool kid, I let it go at that, and wrote to her once in a while and got busy learning to punch cattle. Lord love you, I didn't have much to learn, oecause 1 wras raised in the sad dle. ’mere were none of them better than me If I did have >a high school education. My eyes had gone bad along back while I was in the high school, calling for spectacles. When I first rode in giglamps, they used to josh me, but when 1 got good with the rope and " shot offhand with the best and took first prize for busting bronchos Fourth of July at Range City, they called me the "Four-eyed Cowpuncher,” and I was real proud of it. I wish it was all the nickname I ever had. "The Hero of Pago Bridge”—I wish to God— The X Q X is seventy miles down the river from Srtiped Rock. Seventy miles ain’t such a distance in Colorado, only I never went back for pretty near two years and a half. Then, one Christmas when we were riding fences—keeping the line up against the snow, and running the cattle back if they broke the wires and got across—I got to thinking of the holiday dances at Striped Hock, and says I: "Here’s for a Christmas as neaT home as 1 can get, and a sight of Susie.” The boss let me off, and I made it in on Christmas Eve. The dance was going on down at Forresters Hail. I fixed up and took it in. And theje she was—I didn't know her foT the start she'd got. Her hair—that she used t» wear in two molassey-colored braids hanging down her back and shining in tne sen tfie way candy emnes when you pull it—was done up all over her head. She was all pinky and whltey ln the face the way sue used to Be wner she was a little girl. She had on a sort of pink dress, mighty pretty, with green wa3sets down me iront and a green dingbat arooind the bottom, and long —not the way it was when I saw ner De- foTe. She was rushed to the corner with every geezer in the place piled in front of her . I broke into the bunch. Every body seemeH to see me except Susie. She treated me like any other maverick in the heTd. She hadn’t even a dance left for me. Once, in “Old Dan Tucker, she called me out, but she’d called out every other tarantula in tne wmte river country, so there was no hope in tbat. If ever a man didn’t know where he was at, I was tna candidate. All that winter, riding the fence, I thought an dthought. I’d been so dead sure of her that I was letting her go. Here was the principal of the high school and youing Mullins that worked In the Rancher's Bank, and Biles tnat owned stock in the p L, all after her, like broncos alter a marked steer, and 1 was only me "Four-eyed cowpuncher,” 330 and feund. And I got bluer than the says hee s myself, if she ain't married whet{ spring melts, by me Lora, i'll nave ner. i’m one of those that ain’t forgetting the 16th of February, 1898. Storm over, and me mighty glad of it. Snow all around, except where the line of fence- rails peeked through, and the sun just blinding. I on the bronco breaking ♦ i m 4 • * orado national guard was accepted, en listing as a body. When we were in camp together and the medical inspector went around thumping chests, the cap tain gave him a little song about my eyes. “He can’t see without his glasses.” says Captain Fletcher, “but he can shoot all right with them on. And he raised my extra men, and he’s a sol dier.” The doctor says: "Well, I’m getting forgetful in my age, and maybe I’ll forget the eye test.” Which he did as he said. After that was Dewey and Manila Bay, ana the news that the Colorado volun teers were going to be sent to the Philip pines, which everybody had studied about in the'geography, but nobdy rememberer, except that they were full of Spaniards Just dying to be lambasted. We got going at last, muster at Den ver. and they gave us a Sunday Off to see our folks. You better believe I took an early train for Striped Rock—and Susie. A nundred and five miles It was, and the trains running so that I had Just two hours and twenty-five minutes in the place. Susie wasn’t at home, nor any of the Lathams. They were all in church at ihe Baptist meeting house, where I gave ner the gTab-bag ring for kid fun. I went over there and peeked in the door. A new sky-pilot was in the pulpit, just turned loose on his remarks. Sizing him up, I saw that he was a stem-winding, quarter-hour striking, eight-day talker that would swell up and bust if he CONTINUED ON LAST PAGE. through the crust, feeling mighty good both of us. Down in a little arroyo, where a creek ran in summer, was the end of my run. Away off in the snow I saw Billy Taylor, my side-partner, waving his hand like he was excited. I pounded my mule on the back. “The Maine’s blown up,” he yells. “The Maine’s blown up!” "The what?” says I, not understanding. “The Maine—Havana harbor—war sure!” he says. I tumbled off in the snow while he chucked me down a bun dle of Denver papers. There it was. I went as loco as Billy. Before I got back to camp I had it all figured out— what I ought to do. I got to the fore man before noon and drew my pay and left him cursing. Lickety-split, the cay- use—he was mine—got me to the station. I figured that the national guard would be the first to go, and I figured right. So I telegraphed to old Captain Fletcher of Company N, at Range City; "Have you got room for me?” And he answer ed moi knowing jusfhow I stood on the ranches: ‘Tee. Can you raise me twenty men to fill my company?” He didn’t need to ask for men; there were plenty of them anxious enough to go. but he did need the sort od man I’d get him. Snow be darned. I rode for four days ’ signing up twenty heliaroos that would leave the Rough Riders standing. Into Range City I hustled them. There . we waited on the town, doing nothing but live on our back pay and drill while we waited, nineteen for glory and Spanish Olood, and me for glory and the girl. Congress got a move on at last, though we thought it never would, and the Col-