130                 HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY

    At an earlier day the business and industry of Brazil was much
more diversified, though in the aggregate much less important, than at
present. In 1886 the business interests of the city were thus summarized:
Brazil has a population of five thousand, has one rolling mill, one smelt-
ing furnace, two flour mills, a foundry, boiler and iron bridge works,
two planing mills, four lumber yards, two carriage shops, wagon works,
a pottery, two brick yards, pump and tile factory, two private banks,
electric light plant, three school houses, and Methodist, Presbyterian,
Christian, Catholic, United Brethren, German Lutheran, German Meth-
odist and Colored Methodist churches.
    This summary, published in one of the newspapers, did not take
account of the coal industry, which was then the leading one in the
county. A conspicuous place in the industry of the city was then occu-
pied by the Central Iron and Steel Company, whose plant was located
in the western part of the city, near the C. & E.I. Railroad. This com-
pany was organized in 1882, by a syndicate of Indianapolis and Chicago
capital with local interests represented by the following persons: Major
Collins, who was president of the company, W. C. Hall, the secre-
tary, and C. S. Andrews, J. G. Bryson, J. F. Sherfey and Edward
Wilton.
    The nucleus of the industry was the blast furnace of the old Indian-
apolis Furnace and Mining Company, which was established in 1867-68,
but was in operation only a few months.* After the organization of the
new company, in addition to the manufacture of pig-iron from the native
ores, a rolling mill was established and different iron and steel products
were manufactured. At one time the industry employed about two
hundred men, and the monthly payroll was the largest single item in the
current resources of the city. The block coal of this vicinity provided
a very important element for the manufacture of iron and steel. But
in the last twenty years, since the iron mines of the Lake Superior
region were made available to the furnaces of the United States, it has
become unprofitable to use the native ores, and practically all the fur-
naces that depended on that class of ores have long since gone out of
blast.

    From its beginning as a center of population, Brazil has had a
strong religious life. It is not a city of churches in the meaning that the
church activities are the predominating distinction of the place. But
most of the denominations are represented here, and around some of the
older churches have grown up the strongest associations and social
influences of the city.
    The largest church in the city is the First Methodist, which
originated among the settlers living there in the thirties. Several

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    *In granting a right of way to the Indianapolis Furnace and Mining Com-
pany (D. C. Stunkard and Geore P. Shaw being the petitioning members for the
company), the town board gave its reasons for making the grant in the following
language:
 ‘‘For the purpose of securing the greatest good to the greatest number and
believing that capital invested as their company proposes to invest theirs will be
conducive to that end not only in furnishing employment to a very considerable
number of laboring men, mechanics, etc., but in developing and bringing to light
and testing the value of our mineral wealth, which might not be done even in the
present generation if centralized capital be not encouraged to locate in our midst.’’