Out of Nazareth

Okochee, in Georgia, had a boom, and J. Pinkney Bloom came out of it with a "wad."

Okochee came out of it with a half-million-dollar debt, a two and a half per cent. city property tax, and a city council that showed a propensity for traveling the back streets of the town.

These things came about through a fatal resemblance of the river Cooloosa to the Hudson, as set forth and expounded by a Northern tourist.

Okochee felt that New York should not be allowed to consider itself the only alligator in the swamp, so to speak.

And then that harmless, but persistent, individual so numerous in the South — the man who is always clamoring for more cotton mills, and is ready to take a dollar's worth of stock, provided he can borrow the dollar — that man added his deadly work to the tourist's innocent praise, and Okochee fell.

The Cooloosa River winds through a range of small mountains, passes Okochee and then blends its waters trippingly, as fall the mellifluous Indian syllables, with the Chattahoochee.

Okochee rose, as it were, from its sunny seat on the post-office stoop, hitched up its suspender, and threw a granite dam two hundred and forty feet long and sixty feet high across the Cooloosa one mile above the town.

Thereupon, a dimpling, sparkling lake backed up twenty miles among the little mountains.

Thus in the great game of municipal rivalry did Okochee match that famous drawing card, the Hudson.

It was conceded that nowhere could the Palisades be judged superior in the way of scenery and grandeur.

Following the picture card was played the ace of commercial importance.

Fourteen thousand horsepower would this dam furnish.

Cotton mills, factories, and manufacturing plants would rise up as the green corn after a shower.

The spindle and the flywheel and turbine would sing the shrewd glory of Okochee.

Along the picturesque heights above the lake would rise in beauty the costly villas and the splendid summer residences of capital.

The naphtha launch of the millionaire would spit among the romantic coves; the verdured hills would take formal shapes of terrace, lawn, and park.