FOLEY, Ala. — Just about the time the local newspaper was founded that bears the City of Foley’s name, a financial panic occurred that may or may not remind readers today of the present U.S. economy.

A copper miner, who had made millions in Montana, purchased interests in a number of New York banks. In less than a day, he lost $50 million and U.S. financial markets were shaken.

On Oct. 18, 1907, depositors began a run on New York’s Knickerbocker Trust Co. when they learned the bank president was a business associate of the copper magnate, one F.A. Heinze.

Reportedly, bank tellers paid out $8 million to depositors in a matter of hours. The bank closed its door that same day.

The bank president shot himself. A “bailout” eventually emerged in the person of one J.P. Morgan. Nevertheless, between early 1906 and late 1907 the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost nearly half of its value. The Knickerbocker panic caused considerable monetary constraints.

Whether any of those constraints were felt in the then young city of Foley, Ala., who can say. If the words of two of the city’s most prominent citizens and businessmen are any indication, probably not.

“I don’t ever remember it being here. It wasn’t a thing in my past except for the Great Depression,” Charlie Ebert Jr. said this week of the various recessions and crises of the 20th century and their impact on the city.

Ebert, a historian, served on the Foley City Council for over 20 years before stepping down several years ago.

“Even during the Great Depression, Foley has always been an available place for someone to work. Jobs were available,” Arthur Holk, who served in Foley municipal government for over 40 years, said.

Besides serving as mayor for over 20 years, Holk served on the Foley City Council from 1952-72.

“Foley has never really seen a real recession,” Holk said this week.

Ebert remembers a couple of things about the local economy as it relates to hard times. He recalls the oil crisis of 1973-75.

“I had to go somewhere up East, and I took some extra gas with me, but I never ran out,” he said.

That 1973 oil crisis was caused by OPEC’s quadrupling of oil prices and the Vietnam War, but Ebert said the crisis wasn’t felt that harshly in Foley.

An Onlooker editorial page at year’s end in 1973 referred to it as “The Year of Deep Trouble.” Two factors made it so: the energy crisis and Watergate, but the editor said the state of the economy was greater in most Americans’ minds than the Watergate debacle.

“But it was the sting of inflation that took the wind out of most Americans. Food prices rose faster than at anytime since the Korean War,” the Dec. 27, 1973, editorial said.

A front page article in that same issue asked the question, “What was gas rationing like during World War II?” The reporter, Doris Rich, said, “Notices about rationing were sprinkled through the 1943 copies of The Onlooker.”

An article on Nov. 22, 1973, basically substantiates Ebert’s view today concerning the oil crisis’ effect on the Foley area 35 years ago: “ … it is by no means acute yet.”

At the same time, the article said local service stations were closing on Sundays and many stations were cutting back on hours. Why? Because they were unable to meet the demand for increased gasoline consumption from the year before.

“IT WILL MAKE AN

OLD MAN OF ME”

W. Max Griffin, Union Oil distributor, said he had received 90 percent of his 1972 allotment for the month (November 1973), while Paul Schultz, Standard Oil distributor, put his figure at 95 percent. Schultz said he could only deliver diesel to customers he delivered to in 1972.

“It’s bad. It will make an old man of me before my time,” Thomas Hoiles, Gulf Oil Co. distributor, said.

Arthur Boller of Texaco Petroleum said the situation locally for farmers “ … is worse than World War II … .”

By late 1973, Riviera Utilities had enforced a 50 mile an hour speed limit on all its vehicles and the Baldwin County Board of Education did the same. Also, BCBE was urging teachers and other employees to turn off lights, set thermostats at 68 degrees and carpool when possible. Extra uses for school buses were prohibited.

The Onlooker, taking the “glass half full” approach, urged locals to vacation in their home state and “Shop in Baldwin, Save Gas.”

The so-called “Watergate Year” began with the devaluation of the dollar and a lumber crisis that negatively impacted builders and consumers, driving up the cost of a single-family home by $1,200. That was followed in the spring by a meat price protest nationally.

“Reports from the Robertsdale Livestock Auction showed volume to be off about 25 percent on hogs and 40 percent on cattle, but food store managers in the Foley vicinity reported little or no drop in the amount of sales,” The Onlooker reported on April 5, 1973.

Nevertheless, Martin Johnson - his the face of the Social Security Administration locally for many years - said of the year in question in his “Second Thoughts” column in that April 5, 1973, issue, “Heaven knows that 1973 bids fair to go down in history as the economic Armageddon of our nation’s history.”

LOCUSTS, BLIZZARDS AND ASIAN FLU

While Ebert said they were “still under a cloud” in the 1930s from the Stock Market crash and banking collapse that produced the Great Depression, he wouldn’t place the “Armageddon” stamp on hard times locally that resulted from any of the recessions of the 1950s that followed the Korean War, or recessions of the early 1980s and early 1990s.

As he recalls, approximately 20 years ago he had to downsize his business and let some employees go. That’s something he doesn’t recall happening where the city was concerned during his years on the city council.

As he puts it, it was always “upward and more. Maybe every year was not better than the year before, but I knew why it wasn’t,” explaining that the reason could always be understood. The reason had nothing to do with the likes of a panic, recession or crisis.

The city’s current mayor, John Koniar, like Ebert and Holk, served for many years on the city council. Prior to the current recession caused by the collapse of the housing market and tight credit markets, Koniar agrees with Holk and Ebert: Nothing in the city’s economic past has impacted it to the degree the current recession might.

“The reason we’re so impacted by this in my opinion is things were so tremendously busy here, and we geared up for the here and now and added people in areas where they needed to be added,” Koniar said.

He adds that the national economic plunge was so sudden that the city is now forced to react. It is doing so in part by revising the current city budget and looking at what Koniar calls a “minimal” reduction in jobs.

“Very cautious - very conservative” is the way Koniar describes the city’s approach to the current recession. At the same time, he feels Foley is, in many respects, better off than many cities.

Holk agrees in principle.

“Foley is going to be all right. It’s going to take time, but the city is in good financial shape. There are ample sources of revenue.”

“Whether this will be a Great Depression or not, I don’t know,” Ebert said of what looms ahead.

“I’m disappointed in the way the people blame the political parties. It looks like to me they cast blame and talk themselves into oblivion. They create these things by and large.”

Ebert’s words are more than a little reminiscent of an Onlooker editorial from Nov. 17, 1960, one of those recession periods fueled by unemployment nationally and proration and the high cost of farming locally. The editorial was entitled “County Survives.”

“People should reflect that this country has survived locusts, droughts, numerous wars, depression, blizzards, Asian flu and both Democrats and Republicans.”