Taggart Coal Company
TAGGART COAL COMPANY
ONE of the largest and most important enterprises of the South engaged in contracting for steamship coal is the Taggart Coal Company, incorporated in 1915, which has its main office at Savannah, Ga.
The business was established in 1866 by the late Colonel G. I. Taggart, who established it as a retail coal concern with money saved from his salary in the Union Arm y. He led a brigade in Sherman's Army in his march to the sea, which explains his location in Savannah. He conducted the business until a short time before his death, when he withdrew, and was succeeded by his sons, G. I. Taggart and J. P. Taggart, who changed the business into a wholesale concern, and since having developed until it has become the largest wholesale coal enterprise on the Atlantic Coast south of Hampton Roads.
The officers are G. I. Taggart, president; J. P. Taggart, vice-president; and G. M. Anglin, secretary and treasurer. Branch offices are maintained at Charleston, S. C., Brunswick, Ga., Jacksonville, Fernandina and Key West, Fla., and Havana, Cuba.
The development of the business of this com-pany is one of the most notable examples of business success in that section of the country, and with the growth of the business there has also been a great development in the equipment of the company for the business. The company owns a fleet of tugboats and barges, and operates a coaling machine at its dock for the coaling of vessels with a capacity of 500 tons per hour.
An especially important department of the company's business is that of steamship bunkering at the various ports where it operates. The company has its own coal mines, its own marine dry- dock and numerous individual railroad cars, as well as much modern coal-handling apparatus. It has an agency in London and Liverpool, represented by the Harrisons (London), Ltd., and enjoys high repute with the shipowners of Europe as well as of this country, for the shipment of coal to the West Indies and South America. It has its own railroad and tidewater terminal facilities at the Port of Savannah, and owns there valuable waterfront property, upon which it has constructed the most modern and extensive privately owned coal elevator south of Baltimore. At that plant the company has a capacity for loading vessels of any size and type.
G. I. Taggart is a director in the Savannah
Bank & Trust Company, the Union Society, the Georgia Fertilizer & Oil Company, and widely known in business circles throughout the country. His brother, J. P. Taggart. The vice-president, is also p r o m I n ently connected with business enterprises of that section. The company has been developed from a retail enterprise to its present commanding position in the wholesale coal trade by adherence to the rugged principles of integrity, service and consideration for their clientele that characterized the business record of the founder of the concern. The growth of the business has been continuous, and has been specially marked in recent years.
