The steam railroad mileage of the State for the fiscal year ended 30 June 1914, exclusive of switching and terminal companies, was 4,105.55, or 1.63 per cent of the total mileage of the United States. The State had 9.85 miles of line for each hundred square miles of territory and 18.42 miles of line for each 10,000 in habitants. In 1870, with. 1,492 miles, it ranked 12th in its proportion to the total mileage, In 1914 its standing in this respect was 29th, while as to mileage on the basis of territory it was 28th and on population 38th. Prior to the Constitutional Convention of 1870, the State gave large aid to railroad development and up to the Civil War period, had issued bonds for that purpose amounting to approxi mately $15,000,000.
For the calendar year 1914 the State levied taxes against 39 railroad corporations, having an assessed value of distributable and localized property of $90,787,256.25, upon which the tax for State purposes alone was $317,755.40. Ex cluding the special excise taxes of the govern ment, the railroads in the State pay in annual taxes approximately $448 per mile of road. The six railroads of the State operating or con trolling more than 50 miles of line, and which embrace about three-fourths of the total mile age, are as follows: Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company, 1,888 miles, including the Nashville, Chattanooga and Saint Louis Rail way, with 899 miles; the Southern Railway Company, 985 miles, including the Mobile and Ohio Railroad Company with 119 miles, and the Virginia Southwestern Railway with 101 miles; the Illinois Central Railroad Company with 351 miles; the Tennessee Central Railroad Com pany, with 294 miles; the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railroad Company with 143 miles, and the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railroad with 55 miles. The freight rates of the State are equitable and the ma jority of the railroads have a maximum pas senger rate of two and a half cents per mile. For the most part, the railroads are assisting to an unusual degree in the development of the resources along their lines.
The street railway mileage in the State in 1914 was 389.9, and had an assessed value for taxation of $14,607,388.89.
The Resources of Tennessee.
— To state in definite figures the amount of power which can and ultimately will be ob. tamed from the rivers of Tennessee is an im possibility. Any comprehensive scheme of water-power development must, for its realiza tion, ignore political boundaries. For this reason it is not possible to segregate the water power resources of one State from those of the neighboring States. Furthermore, the quantity of power to be obtained from any given stream is wholly a question of the extent of possible storage of water in reservoirs, the construction of which forms an essential part of the water-power development. This ques
tion of reservoirs is itselt complex, for it in volves questions of vested rights, the agri cultural value of lands to be flooded, the re location of railroads which are already so situ ated as to render a great many otherwise attractive water-power projects impossible of realization, and other questions of a technical nature no less vital to even an estimate of the amount of power potential in a single river.
Such figures, therefore, as may be pre sented are to be regarded merely as estimates, and the following table, which has been com piled with great care from all the data avail able, must be so interpreted.
The total amount of power which a com prehensive plan of development, such for in stance as will be necessitated in the future by the exhaustion of cheap coal, will render available is undoubtedly more than double the above figure ; quite probably more than triple the Present Development.—The large develop ments already completed within the State are comprised in the following table: indebtedness was converted into and sold as serial bonds, running 40 years bearing 4 per cent and 41/2 per cent interest, averaging 4.28 per cent interest.
Bonds held by charitable and educational in stitutions: 5 per cent certificates of indebtedness $14,000 6 per cent certificates of indebtedness 622,000 Total $636,000 The Tennessee Power Company has con structed a third water-power plant, to develop 80,000 horse power, located on Caney Fork, a tributary of the Cumberland River.
Undoubtedly the dominant power interests in the State are those of the Tennessee Power Company. This company, beside owning the three water powers above, leases the plant of the Chattanooga and Tennessee River Power Company at Hales Bar, owns the steam power plants of the Chattanooga Railway and Light Company, the Nashville Railway and Light Company and a third steam plant at Cleveland. It also holds an undeveloped water-power site, above the two already mentioned, on the Ocoee River. It has the most extensive transmission line in the State. This line connects all of the power-houses with each other and with the cities of Chattanooga, Nashville, Cleveland and Knoxville; and the company has a practical monopoly of the power business in the three first named places and it furnishes power to the Knoxville Railway and Light C,ompany, which supplies the power requirements of Knoxville. Its transmission lines total over 300 miles.