Here©s Georgia! LIBRARIES - the Digital Library of Georgia

FACTS ABOUT GEORGIA 77
REAR VIEW OF PACKING PLANT AT MOULTR1E
ville, the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis, the Atlanta & West
Point, the Central of Georgia, and the Georgia Railroad.
Freight and express rates are fixed by the State Railroad Com
mission, the powers of which are much wider than its name
would imply. It is in reality a public utilities commission, with
authoritative jurisdiction as well over all terminal stations, electric
railway, power and light companies, and express, gas and cotton
compress companies. The State itself owns an important railroad
line, the Western & Atlantic, from the lease of which it receives
an annual income of nearly half a million dollars. Several boat
lines touch at the ports of Savannah, Brunswick, Darien, and
St. Marys.
Navigation Goes Far Inland
River navigation is a considerable factor in the State©s com
merce. Macon, at the geographical center of the State, reaches
the sea at Darien by a line of self-propelled steel barges down
the Ocmulgee and Altamaha rivers; the Savannah River below
Augusta a distance of 250 miles has been an important com
mercial waterway since Oglethorpe©s time; and the Chattahoochee
and Apalachicola rivers, comprising a navigable waterway of 435
miles, carry Columbus© freights to the Gulf. The Appalachicola
River also receives the waters of the Flint River, now navigable
as far as Albany. Other important rivers are the Oconee, which
is navigable to Milledgeville, the former capital of the state; the
St. Marys, which forms a large part of the Georgia-Florida
boundary, and the Coosa and Oostanaula, which give Rome the
Georgia is increasing
rapidly in live stock
production. Five years
ago only 4,000 Head an
nually were received at
the Atlanta stock yards.
In 1915 there were 50,-
000. Over 30,000 hogs
were killed in Atlanta
in 1915. That city has
become recognized in
the cattle markets of
the West, where there is
a demand for Southern-
raised stock, on ac
count of its running
lighter in weight, with
smaller cuts, more eas
ily handled. Five years
ago two carload or fifty
head a week glutted the
market. To-day 30 car
loads a week do not
supply the demand and
"Western beef is sold in
Atlanta in ever increas
ing quantities.