Items of Interest January 29, 1916 Issue

Items of Interest

Conditions mainly due to the great war in Europe continue to keep all the American shipyards operating at full capacity, while many plants are enlarging and otherwise adding to their facilities for constructing and repairing vessels. The Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Company, Newport News, Va., has obtained a large share of the contracts, according to Manufacturers' Record. The Newport News plant's contracts aggregate about twenty-seven million dollars, and include nineteen contracts for new ships and one contract to rebuild a vessel, six ships being now under construction. A year ago the company was employing about 4100 men, and today the employees on its pay-roll number 6700. The vessels for which contracts are on file include a battleship of 34,100 tonnage, another of 27,500 tons for the United States Navy, five oil carriers 10,900 tons each for the Standard Oil Company, two freight carriers of 4500 tons each, and an oil carrier of 5125 tons for the Southern Pacific Company, and an oil carrier of 8400 tons for the Atlantic Refining Company.

More than $1,765,200 has been expended in six months on the Dixie Highway alone, in the fifty counties in various states which it crosses. These counties are preparing to spend $6,931,000 within the next twelve months. In seven out of eighteen counties in Kentucky there has been expended $135,000. In Ohio, eight counties out of twelve, not including Hamilton County, of which Cincinnati is the county seat, expended $388,000. Five counties out of twenty-two in Florida spent $301,000 on the highway in the last six months. Six counties out of eighteen in Tennessee spent $173,000. Four counties out of five in Illinois, and not including Cook County, of which Chicago is the metropolis, spent $252,000, while ten counties out of twenty-four in Georgia spent $95,000. From the reports received from the fifty counties, over 367 miles in these districts are either paved now or contracted for, using either concrete, brick, or asphalt.

Official figures returned to the public works department of Providence, R. I., and compared with figures of the port of Boston, appear to show the former port to be the largest oil distributing point in New England. The development of this port as an oil port has been sudden. The great oil companies of the country are spending large sums. The Standard Oil Company has a plant on Seekonk River, and three other companies have located there within a comparatively short time. The new companies include the Texas, Gulf Refining, and Mexican Petroleum companies. A fourth company, the Huasteca, has taken over a large frontage at Kettle Point, and is shortly to begin the construction of wharfage and tanks at an expense of $300,000 or more.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

Items of Interest

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access