For fifty years Wheeling has been a wool market of peculiar interest to manufacturers of woolen fabrics. This she owes to her favored location in the heart of the finest wool-growing territory in America. Within a radius of fifty miles, embracing a region tributary to Wheeling, is raised the largest quantity of high grade wool produced anywhere in the country. Wool-growing has reached its highest development in Southwestern West Virginia and those counties of Eastern Ohio which lie opposite. The composition of the soil, the broken character of the country and the bountiful supply of pure water, have made of this environment a natural sheep pasture not surpassed in the world. Nowhere has a higher intelligence been applied to this important pastural industry, and in no other equal area has so much capital been invested. The constant aim has been to improve the breeds of stock with a view to their wool-bearing qualities, and the result has been a celebrity which commands for these wools the highest market price. They stand at the head of the list and sell when there is any demand at all.
Since George Wilson, half a century ago began to buy wool on a large scale, the business hereabouts has steadily increased with the progressing yield of the clip. Manufacturers know the value of the fine Saxony and the heavier Marino wools of this vicinity, and about the middle of May in every year send their agents to look the field over. About June 1st the agents from the East begin their campaign in earnest, buying and shipping millions of pounds.
Besides these buyers from the East there are local dealers who take up very large quantities. Henry K. List, long identified with the wool interest, has bought as high as $300,000 worth in one season. Horkheimer Bros. are among the most active and extensive dealers. This season they have handled 800,000 pounds. S. Horkheimer & Son are also heavy dealers in wool. Both of these houses add to their wool business a large export trade in ginseng. Wheeling draws in the wool clip from so large a territory because of her facilities for handling, and also because she has become known as paying full value to the wool-grower.
A QUEER KIRK IN THE LAW
SPRINGFIELD REPUBLICAN.
There is an odd and expensive hitch in the Superior Court docket just now that will cost the county a good bit of money to get over. In the indictment against Eugene S. Taylor, of Deerfield, for murder, the word strychnine was misspelled by one letter. This mistake, however, is enough to cause the Grand Jury to be resummoned at 3 p.m. to-morrow to correct it. Fees, mileage, and notices will count up a pretty sum - enough to buy a dictionary apiece for the worthy Grand Jury.
Senator Hearst and the Cowboy's Dream,
PITTSBURGH DISPATCH,
It is related of Senator Hearst that while in Washington he was introduced to a new cocktail from California called "the cowboy's dream," which is said to be "peculiarly searching in its operations on the internal system of the average Congressman." A cowboy's dream, according to our way of thinking, would be an ordinary man's nightmare, full of pistols, knives and other such things. We are not surprised that it takes hold of a Congressman's internal system.
The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, Sept. 14, 1886
Service provided by the staff of the Ohio County Public Library in partnership with and partially funded by the Wheeling National Heritage Area Corporation.