Conditions in Atlanta are highly favorable to manufacturing industries, and this is attested by the great variety of articles made here. There were in 1900 395 establishments, employing over 9,000 operatives at good wages, and pouring into the channels of trade an annual pay-roll of $3,100,000. The value of the raw material consumed was more than $8,000,000 and the product between sixteen and seventeen millions. Since then the product has increased to $27,000,000 and the number of wage earners to 14,000.
The manufacturers of Atlanta in their variety have a guaranty of stability not to be found in those of any city where industry is confined to one family, as of iron or cotton, however important that may be, and the extent of this variety is to some degree indicated in the chapter on this subject. Among the articles made are many specialties, for which there is a demand in almost every State in the Union, and concerns making them have enjoyed prosperity through a long series of years.
The trade of Atlanta covers more or less all of the States between the Ohio and Potomac rivers, the Gulf, the Atlantic ocean and the Mississippi River, and in some lines extends to the far Southwestern States and into Mexico, while in a few it covers the entire country. The tendency of the jobbing trade of the Southeast is to concentrate in Atlanta, and little by little the business of other centers gravitates to this city.
Atlanta’s commanding geographical and topographical situation was, at the outset, one of the causes which led to the development of a great railroad center, at which powerful systems from the East, the West and the Southeast regularly compete. As a distributing point Atlanta enjoys facilities hardly equaled elsewhere in the Southeastern States, and as an accessible place of rendezvous for all kinds of organizations and interests, it is a favorite, and has come to be known as the Convention City.
Atlanta’s financial institutions are of the most solid character.
Atlanta is the third city in the United States in the amount of insurance written and reported to agencies. It is the Southern headquarters for a number of fire and life insurance companies, and agencies of old-line and every other type of insurance are numerous.
ARAGON HOTEL.
PIEDMONT HOTEL.