Arthur St. Clair Colyar

Arthur St. Clair Colyar played a major role in the raising of Tracy City like a phoenix from the ashes of the Civil War to an industrial giant of the late 19th century. Born In Washington County near Jonesboro, he migrated at age of nine with his parents to Franklin County where he developed a law practice in Winchester that was extended to Nashville. He emerged as a political leader, opposing Tennessee's secession from the Union in 1861, but becoming a member of the Confederate Congress, serving until 1865., He was editor and publisher of Nashville American through which, following the Civil war, he advocated aggressive policies to attract population to Tennessee, particularly the Cumberland Plateau. In 1871 he organized Tennessee Immigration, Real Estate and Labor Association to promote immigration and settlement in the state. In this effort he was associated with John Moffat, the founder of Moffat (now Monteagle) at the narrowest neck of the plateau, six miles west of Tracy City., In an attempt to salvage the investment of the original investors in Sewanee Mining Company, Samuel Tracy effected a reorganization of the company in 1860 to include the principal creditors, several of the original shareholders and other businessmen who could enhance its financial standing and infuse needed technical expertise. Tennessee Coal and Railroad Company emerged as the reorganized corporation., The Civil War intervened before the reorganized company could get started. The Confederates expropriated the assets and attempted to operate the established coal mine (Wooten #1) until they retreated from middle Tennessee (July 1863), taking the rolling stock with them. The Union forces took possession and exploited the mine until the shaft was no longer safe., Creditors in Tennessee and creditors in New York, in separate lawsuits, each had become purchasers of the assets. Arthur St. Clair Colyar, representing the Tennessee creditors, persuaded the New York creditors to take first mortgage bonds in the amount of $220,000 issued by the reorganized company in payment for their claims. $400,000 in stock was issued to be held in escrow to pay the Tennessee creditors. Colyar, liquidating all his assets, purchased the stock, and became sole owner and president of the company., Colyar was one of the architects of the New South. He and others of like minds believed that the South, following its defeat in the Civil War, should rebuild with economic diversity in agriculture and with an industrial base such as had been accomplished in the North. He applied these principles in the development of Tennessee Coal and Railroad Company that became his laboratory for forming an industrial base in the South. He fostered the company's development of Sewanee seam coal mined at Wooten Mine #1 in Tracy City into coke that could be used in blast furnaces to produce pig iron, the basic ingredient needed for the production of iron and steel products., Sources: , Nicholson, James L., Grundy County, Memphis State University Press (1982) , Tennessee Coal and Iron Division United States Steel Corporation, Biography of a Business (1960)