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Mineral Resources & Manufacturing Facilities of Cumberland, 1875
The Cumberland Board of Trade in 1875 published a pamphlet entitled Mineral Resources & Manufacturing Facilities of Cumberland. C. J. Orrick, a Cumberland business man, compiled it.
The pamphlet was a marketing tool for Cumberland, telling of the availability of cheap high quality George’s Creek coal, and the raw materials for manufacturing – iron, limestone, sandstone, fire clay and timber – with the hope of attracting capital and business ability to develop our mineral wealth and utilize our manufacturing facilities. The document also lists all of the transportation routes to and from Cumberland as a railroad hub. There is also brief mention made of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, but the railroads offered the ability to get manufactured goods throughout the North East.
Included in the pamphlet is research on how Allegany iron ore, for example, compares to other ores, even African ones. The paper by Arthur F. Wendt, a member of American Institute of Mining Engineers, and Superintendent , Cumberland Coal and Iron Company, is replete with measurements of Iron, Silica, Phosphorus and the costs of production of different types of iron using local inputs. Nature has bountifully supplied Cumberland with those gifts which will, in the near future, give it the importance to which, by its resources and position, it is entitled.
| Western Maryland Regional Library is grateful to the Allegany County Public Library for making this pamphlet available. It was part of the collection of materials found in Theo. Luman's trunk of memorabilia collected at the Allegany County Centennial in 1889. |
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