Howard County IN Archives History - Books .....Industrial History 1909
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Book Title: History Of Howard County Indiana

INDUSTRIAL HISTORY.

   Howard county is an agricultural county of the first class. Corn, wheat,
oats, rye, potatoes and hay are produced in abundance.

   Corn is the banner crop. The deep, black soil and the abundant rainfall and a
growing season of just the right length combine to make this a good corn county.
The various grasses—clover, timothy and blue grass—find a natural home here and
produce sure and abundant crops of hay and afford excellent grazing, thus making
this a good live stock country. As has heretofore been indicated, in the
beginning the possibilities only of our present high agricultral condition were
here. These fertile soils were covered with heavy forests and, for much of the
year, with water, too.

   With much hard labor and great expense all these lands have been tile
underdrained so that the land is not only drained of water but air is introduced
into the soil, adding to its fertility. The forests have been cleared away until
now a timber famine is almost in sight.

LUMBERING.

   While the clearing has been going on the lumber business has been an
important industry. For many years all the log and frame buildings were built in
their entirety out of native timber and lumber—roofs were of oak clapboards or
shaved walnut or poplar shingles, the frames and siding of yellow popular
lumber, the floors of ash lumber and the finish of black walnut lumber. This has
continued until recent years, when the growing scarcity of native timber and the
high prices of native lumber compelled the use of pine and cheaper materials.
The use of the native lumber for so many years has saved the people of this
county a very large sum of money.

   For many years the shipping of lumber from the county, cut by local sawmills,
was an important industry. Vast sums were realized from the sale of the walnut,
poplar and ash lumber while that timber was being cut away; then another very
largfe sum was received for the oak timber, as heading and lumber, and later
still a considerable sum was received for the beech and sugar, and later still
the despised water or soft elms are being exchanged for cash, omitting any
mention of handle and hoop-pole timber.

   The gross sum received from the sale of Howard county timber and saved by the
people in using this timber for various domestic uses—buildings, fences, fuel,
etc.—if accurately computed would be a vast sum. This source of revenue is
practically past, but is compensated for by well-cleared fields, fitted for the
modern methods of cultivation, and the woodlands, thinned out and cleared of
underbrush and affording excellent blue grass pasturage. There is little or no
waste lands on the farms now, where some years since much of it was unused.
Denser population and high-priced lands have tended toward more intensive and
better farming.

DEVELOPMENT OF FARMS.

   Perhaps there is no vocation in life in which there has been so much
advancement all along the line as in the farm life in Howard county in the past
sixty years. Then he sowed his wheat broadcast and plowed it in the cornfield
with a single-shovel plow, or harrowed it in with an "A" harrow, if in a plowed
field. He harvested it with a reap hook, threshed it with a flail or tramped it
out with horses and blew out the chaff with a fanning mill; later he cut the
grain with a cradle and threshed it with a "groundhog thresher" and cleaned it
with a fanning mill, and a little later threshed it with a horse power
separator. Several years later, when the fields were partly cleared of the
stumps and roots, he began to use the modern method of sowing his grain with a
drill and to cut it with machines but yet binding by hand and threshing with
steam power separators, but doing all the work about the machine by hand—cutting
the bands and feeding the grain into the machine by hand; measuring the grain
into bags by hand, loading the grain into wagons by hand and stacking straw by
hand—all hard, dusty work. Now he sows all his small grain with drills in fields
cleared of stumps and roots. He pulverizes the soil with modern harrows and
field rollers, all provided with spring seats. He harvests the grain with
self-binders and puts off the sheaves in bunches for shocking, and threshes with
steam power machines that cut the bands and feed with self-feeders that elevate
and weigh the threshed grain and dump it into wagons, ready to be hauled to
market, and stacks the straw with an automatic wind stacker.

MODERN METHODS.

   The present-day farmer would not know a jumping shovel plow should he meet
one. Very few of them could cross off a field in straight furrows the proper
width for corn rows, and to drop the corn into the crosses with three to four
grains to the hill would be beyond his or her skill, and then to cover the corn
with an old-fashioned hoe, among stumps and roots, would be the limit; and then
to cultivate it with the single-shovel walking plow among roots, that too often
would spring back and hit him on the shins, would precipitate a labor strike
indeed. The modern farmer does none of these things. In the bright springtime,
when the conditions are all right, he hitches three good horses to a modern
breaking plow, drives out to a field where the memory of stumps and roots has
almost faded away, and turns over the mellow soil and has nothing to suggest
evil thoughts. And when the field is ready for planting he does not go out and
cross it off with his single-shovel plow, but alone and unattended he hitches to
his two-horse check row planter and plants twice as much in a day as did that
force of five people in the elder day and does a better job; and when the green
shoots are visible and can be seen across the field in the row, he drives out to
the field with a riding cultivator and plows without fear of bodily injury.

   When the clover blooms are more than half brown and the bloom has fallen from
the heads of the timothy stalks, this farmer does not get down his rusty mowing
scythe and, after grinding to a keen edge, with a long sandstone whetrock in his
pocket go out to the field and in the burning sunshine swing his scythe back and
forth, cutting the heavy growth of grass and throwing it into swaths to be
afterwards scattered for drying, occasionally stopping to whet his scythe with
the whetrock. After the hay is cured he does not throw it into windrows with a
fork and then pitch it on a wagon and afterwards pitch it into the mow.

HOW HAY IS NOW HARVESTED.

   No. The modern farmer hitches to an up-to-date mower, mows a field quickly,
hitches to a tedder, kicks it up so as to permit the air to pass through and dry
it out quickly, and then backs his hay wagon up to a hay loader, hitches them
together and drives around the field, while the loader gathers up the hay and
delivers it on the wagon. After the wagon is loaded he drives to the barn and
there a hayfork, drawn by horse power, picks up the hay from the wagon and
deposits it in the mow.

   When the summer is past and the wintry storms have come, this farmer does not
wrap himself up as best he can, go out and harness up a team, restless with
cold, and drive to the field, and, brushing the snow off of his shocks of
fodder, load and haul them to a wood lot or the straw pile and scatter the
fodder on the ground for the stock to pick over and make a meal of. No. Last
fall, while the weather was pleasant, he canned many acres of green corn in his
silo and now, while the cold and snow are without, he feeds his well-housed
stock in their separate stalls with a feed which they thoroughly relish; and
then, too, before the snow had fallen he had the shredder to tear his fodder
into bits and blow it into mows in his barns convenient for feeding and where,
under shelter and in the dry, he does his farm chores. He appreciates the value
of warm, dry quarters for his stock and he largely has barns for all his stock
and thus feeds more economically and profitably. Not only has he made these
wonderful advances in his industrial methods but in his social life as well.
Once he was shut in at his farm house for months at a time, because of
impassable roads; now a good, free gravel road passes the front gate of nearly
every home. Once he often passed more than a week without receiving any mail and
then only by going a long distance in bad weather; now the rural mail carrier
brings it to his home every day except Sunday. Once he often passed more than a
week without receiving any mail to or from neighbors; now any member of the
family can, by stepping to an instrument on the wall, call up almost any one
wanted, far or near. In the matter of schools, too, the countryside has been
favored. Where a generation ago the scholars were compelled to dress for
exposure and walked a mile, a mile and a half or two miles to school, in paths
across field and through woods, returning in the evening over the same path and
often through storm, now the well-equipped school wagon carries the scholars
from the home to the school and from the school to the home again.

CONDITIONS ARE CHANGING.

   As wonderful as has been the industrial advance of the past, the end is not
yet. Our rich soils and high-priced lands suggest changes ' in the industrial
methods of farming—changes that are already taking place; the canning factories
and the city markets are making places for the small farmer and his intensive
farming; the dairying industry is being rapidly developed and the farmer of
today is giving attention to the problem of preventing soil exhaustion.

   It is well that the conditions of the farming class are as favorable as they
are, for because of natural resources the leading industry of Howard county must
continue to be agriculture.

   Before ever factories came into her midst, the farming community was engaged
in the herculean task of making the present well-improved farms. Their present
and prospective high state of culture forecast a condition of continued
prosperity, where homes abound in comfort and contentment.

MERCANTILE LIFE.

   Contemporaneous and almost inseparably connected with these industrial
activities of the farm have been the mercantile enterprises of the county. These
have kept pace with the demands of the time. The first stores or trading places
were in keeping with the country, primitive establishment. The wants of the
people were few and simple and their ability to buy quite limited. The purpose
of the early merchants and manufacturers was to meet these simple wants. The
first mill erected in the county was built in 1840. This was built just east of
New London, on Little Honey creek. The Stonebraker mill was built in 1848. In
various parts of the county gristmills and sawmills and combination mills—grist
and saw in one— were built from time to time as the demand seemed to justify.
Nearly all of the early mills were water mills.

   These mills have nearly all passed out of existence. David Foster was the
first Kokomo merchant. Before coming to Kokomo he had a trading house at the
boundary line, about twenty rods north of the crossing of that line by the Wild
Cat pike. This house was a log house, stoutly built, with portholes in the
walls, and contained two rooms, the storeroom being on the Seven-mile Strip side
of the line and the counter over which he dispensed goods on the Reserve side.
It is said this peculiar construction was to evade the law in selling whisky to
Indians on government territory. John Bohan was the second merchant, coming here
in 1844 from Anderson and commencing on the southeast corner of the square where
the Kokomo Bank is now located. Other early merchants were Austin North, J. D.
Sharp and Samuel Rosenthal.

   At or near New London, Joshua Barnett was the first merchant, coming there in
1839. His stock of goods consisted of a few groceries, liquors and small notions
that he could sell to the Indians. Soon after John Harrison came with a meager
stock of goods, and, locating at Harrison's place, becoming the second trader in
Monroe township. Charles Allison clerked for him in the spring of 1840, and thus
began his business career in Howard county.

   Burlington, in Carroll county, was the nearest village and trading point in
the early history of the western part of the county. Because of the
inconvenience of going so far to trade, Henry Stuart opened up a general store
at or near Russiaville in 1842. His stock consisted of almost everything
saleable—dry goods, groceries, hardware, etc. Mr. Stuart purchased his goods at
Lafayette, Cincinnati and Chicago and transported them in wagons. The people had
little money and made their purchases, for the most part, w7ith "trade,"
exchanging ginseng, which grew abundantly in the wild state, wild meats, fur
skins and honey. There appears to have been an abundance of wild honey in those
early times. It is related of Joseph Taylor, who was afterwards sheriff of
Howard county, that, when a young man, he had often carried a keg of wild honey,
weighing sixty pounds, on horseback to Burlington.

   Deer were also very plentiful, as Mr. Stuart had at one time piled up in his
cabin one hundred "saddles" or pairs of deer horns. Once he purchased a barrel
of strained honey of Vincent Gamer, a pioneer settler of that community. Mr.
Stuart in turn took his trade to Lafayette and exchanged or traded it for goods.
At one time a botanical doctor engaged Mr. Stuart to procure him five hundred
pounds of yellow root and nerve vine. This afforded the women an opportunity to
earn some money. Mr. Stuart traded with the Indians, and the first wagon ever
seen at Kokomo carried Mr. Stuart's goods, which he traded to the Indians. It
required two days for Mr. Stuart and his man to make the trip, and they spent
only two hours in the Indian town. Mr. Stuart's store was not really in
Russiaville, being just outside on the northwest. Martin Burton was the first
merchant really within the limits of Russiaville.

FIRST TRADING POINTS.

   Alto was the earliest trading place in Harrison township. R. Cobb was the
first merchant there; Milos Judkins was the first shoemaker, and William P.
Judkins was the first cabinetmaker. This was in 1848, or early in 1849; and in a
short time there were three stores there stocked with well-selected goods, and
three cabinet shops were operating prosperously. It is also said that there was
as much business done there as in Kokomo at that time. Greentown was the first
trading point in Liberty township, and its beginning was largely due to the
demand of the neighborhood for a convenient trading point. It was laid out in
1848 on the site of an old Indian town known as Green Village, named thus, it is
said, because the Indians having cut off the timber on the site of the village,
grass had grown up, making a green landscape in contrast with the dark forest
all around, and the name Greentown was adopted for the white man's town. The
first merchants were L. W. Bacon and his father in a double hewed log house
built by them on the northeast corner of the intersection of Main and Meridian
streets. They stocked, their store room with a miscellaneous assortment of
merchandise to the amount of about one thousand dollars and sold goods for two
years. A little later C. O. Fry erected another store room on the southwest
corner of the same street intersection. Dr. Barrett bought an interest in Fry's
store and together they continued in business for several years. These were soon
followed by others and Greentown soon became an important trading point.

   Jerome had its origin in much the same way. It is said of the early settlers
in the vicinity of Jerome that the greater amount of trading during the early
days was done at Marion, Jonesboro, Peru, Logansport and Noblesville, some of
the first settlers going as far as Indianapolis for their merchandise.

   Flour and meal were obtained from those places in the summer time: but during
the winter seasons when the condition of the early roads precluded the
possibility of travel, many families manufactured their own breadstuffs by hand,
crushing the grain in a rude mortar made by hollowing out the top of a stump.
One of those pioneers has said, "We were compelled to go to Jonesboro and
Somerset on the Mississinnewa and to points on the White river and the Wabash
for grinding. It was a long, winding bush road through the woods, across the
sloughs. We took mostly corn, as scarcely any wheat was raised in the county.
The writer remembers riding on horseback to Somerset purposely to get flour for
a house-raising, which he bought there and returned with before he slept after
leaving town."

IN HONEY CREEK TOWNSHIP.

   From a description of pioneer life in Honey Creek township we are told. "Corn
must be carried fourteen miles on horseback to have it converted into meal. Two
miles below Burlington was the nearest mill—the old 'Crummel mill.' Often did
the pioneer go six miles farther down Big Wildcat to the 'Adams mill.' It
required all of one day and the most part of the following night to make the
trip. Doubtless a modern Honey Creek youth of twelve years would feel some
timidity in undertaking such an errand through a wolf-infested wilderness." The
founding of the early towns and the building of the first mills were prompted
more by necessity than the desire of industrial gain, and so it is said of
Jerome that the chief cause which led to its founding was a general desire on
the part of the community for a trading point, there being no town nearer than
Jonesboro on the east and Russiaville and New London on the west. The immediate
outgrowth of this demand was the establishment of a small store and a blacksmith
shop in 1847, which formed the nucleus around which several families located.
Soon after Hampton Brown laid out the village and named it Jerome in compliment
to his son Jerome. Thomas Banks bought a lot and built a store house and became
the first merchant. He stocked his room with a miscellaneous assortment of
merchandise to the value of about five hundred dollars and sold goods for three
years, selling out to Joel and C. Murphy.

   Goff & Allen erected a hewed log store building in 1853 and engaged in
merchandising for four years, carrying a large stock valued at three thousand
five hundred dollars. They sold out to Harvey Brown.

   West Liberty had its origin in the erection of a large water mill near its
northeastern limits; this and a blacksmith shop led Moses Jones to plat a town
site in the latter part of 1849.

FIRST BUSINESS HOUSE.

   Moses Rich erected the first business house in 1850. This was a log building
sixteen by twenty feet. Rich carried a stock valued at one thousand dollars, and
did a good business. He carried on the business for twelve years. David Macy
erected the second store building and was a prominent merchant and operated an
extensive store for five years, when he closed out and left the place. Sycamore
Corners had its origin in the building of what is now the "Clover Leaf railroad"
and was laid out in 1881 by O. P. Hollingsworth. Allen Quick and Frank Hoon were
the first merchants, who fitted up the old frame school house for a store room
soon after the building of the railroad. This is a good shipping and trading point.

   Vermont was laid oct [sic] in 1849 by Milton Hadley, who had obtained a part
of float section No. 7. He appears to have been a man of considerable enterprise
and ambition and in platting Vermont he laid out a very pretentious town, with a
public square and a large number of town lots clustered around the square. A
white oak tree standing on the bluff of Wild Cat was the starting point for the
survey of this future metropolis of Howard county. The town plat suggests that
he considered his town site so superior to any other that possibly others would
appreciate it and thus would be influenced to change to the town he had planned.
This hope, if hope it was, was disappointed, and after a brief and feeble
existence the town ceased to be and its site is now cultivated fields and the
white oak doubtless, ere this, like the town whose sentinel it was, has
disappeared. Charles Ellison was the first merchant of this town, carrying on a
grocery store and a dramshop. His dramshop was the resort of the tough
characters of the surrounding country and gained for the place a bad reputation.
Benjamin Jackson and John Colescott were other early merchants. After the
building of the Clover Leaf railroad, to the north of the old town, a station
and trading point was established on the railroad a short distance northwest of it.

LAID OUT NEW LONDON.

   New London was laid out in 1845 by John Lamb and Reuben Edgerton. At that
time there were three houses, or cabins, in the town. Jonathan Hawarth was at
that time engaged in the sale of dry goods and groceries. He was succeeded by
Isaac Ramsey. Soon after the organization Richard Nixon came to the town and
engaged in the mercantile business. He remained there many years.

Fairfield was laid out in 1849 by John J. Stephens in anticipation of the
building of the I. & P. Railroad, which had been surveyed through that point
some time previously. On the completion of the railroad the place became a
prominent shipping point and had a reputation of being one of the best shipping
points and markets on the line between Peru and Indianapolis for a number of
years; but because of the building of the Pan Handle railroad on the east, and
the improvement of the highways leading into Kokomo, much of the trade has been
diverted to other points.

   Bundy & Johnson were the first merchants in a little house west of the
railroad. They did a fair business on a stock valued at $500. Overman & Stout
started the second store. They erected a small storeroom just northeast of the
railroad. After two years their stock was closed out. Thompson & Evans did the
largest mercantile business of any firm in Fairfield. Their storeroom was on the
west side of the railroad and on the south side of the street. They also
operated the large warehouse and elevator erected by Evans & Fortner.

THE FIRST WAREHOUSE.

   The first warehouse was built by Bundy & Robinson and was in the south part
of town and on the west side of the railroad tracks. Tampico was laid out in
1852 by Ephraim Trabue. Spencer Latty was the first merchant. Terre Hall was
also laid out in 1852 by Asa Parker. Cable & Osborne were the first merchants,
dealing in a miscellaneous assortment of articles. Both towns were the outgrowth
of the location and building of the P., C. & St. L. Railroad and both had, in
course of time, the accessories—blacksmith shops and sawmills.

   Cassville was laid out in 1848 by William and Nathan Stanley. Its origin was
the survey for the construction of the I. & P. Railroad, and after the building
of the railroad for a time had quite a reputation as a trading point. The first
stock of goods was brought to the place by John and David Evans, who erected a
good frame storehouse near the railroad and did a good business for four years
and then sold out to Samuel Martindale.

   Poplar Grove was first settled in 1847 by Caleb Coate and the merchants were
Coate & Morris, who conducted a dry goods and grocery store.

   These various trading points have been continued to the present time, with
two or three exceptions, and outside of Russiaville and Green town have just
about held their own. A few points have been added as Plevna and Phlox and Guy
in the east, and Kappa, Ridgeway and West Middleton in the west end.

   Russiaville and Greentown, in the opposite ends of the county, are
flourishing and growing towns.

SAWMILLS BECOMING SCARCE.

   Reference has already been made to the lumber industry of the county. In the
years that are past the great sawdust piles in frequently recurring intervals
bore silent witness to the fact that here had been a sawmill. Since the
exhaustion of the timber these mills are few in number and are found at the
towns. It is therefore considered not worth while to make further reference to
them.

   The other class of mills, for grinding flour and meal, instead of going out
of use have much increased their usefulness. Many of those early mills, with
their simple and meager beginnings, have gone on from one improvement to another
until they are now up-to-date and prosperous mills; while the decaying and
falling framework and the abandoned millraces mark the places where others were
busy in a former generation, and it is deemed worth while to note these
beginnings and to rehearse a history of that which is past but remains to the
present.

   The Stonebraker mill, after sixty years, still does business at the old stand
and is one of the best-known objects in the county. The mills and the various
milling industries in the vicinity of New London, which were dependent upon the
water power of Honey creek, have long since ceased to exist. The past sixty
years have witnessed a wonderful shrinkage in the water supplies of the county.

SOME OF THE FIRST MILLS.

   At Russiaville the first gristmill was built out of logs on Squirrel creek,
near the present site of the cemetery, and was a mere corn cracker and was
operated by water power.

   In 1852 Martin Burton built the first flouring mill in Russiaville. At first
it was a water power mill, but in a few years was changed to a steam mill. In
1870 it was destroyed by fire, but was rebuilt and has been improved until it is
up-to-date and a good industry.

   The first gristmill in Harrison township was built by James Brooks just south
of Alto in 1848. It was a small corn-cracker and wheat mill. A part of the old
frame is still standing and a portion of the millrace is yet in existence. In
1850 Samuel Stratton erected a gristmill in connection with his sawmill on
Little Wild Cat northwest of the site of West Middleton.

THE WEST MIDDLETON STEAM FLOURING MILL.

   Early in 1882 Samuel and Joseph Stratton and Amos C. and John Ratcliff formed
a company and began the erection of a steam flouring mill at West Middleton. It
is a brick building, built upon a heavy stone foundation. The body of the
building is thirty-six by forty-eight feet and is four stories high. It is
provided with a very complete outfit for handling and cleaning wheat and making
flour and cornmeal. The original cost was ten thousand dollars, and it had a
capacity for seveny-five [sic] barrels per day.

   The first mill in Taylor township was a handmill for grinding corn and was
built and owned by Nathan C. Beals, who lived about one mile northeast of the
site of Fairfield. This mill he made out of two boulders taken from his farm in
Section 20. The lower stone was fixed, and the upper stone was revolved on a
pivot inserted in the lower stone. There was a wooden pin or post inserted in
the outer edge of the upper stone, by which it was turned. The meal-hoop was
made of the inside bark of a shell-bark hickory tree and sewed together with
leather wood bark. The mill was fed by a boy, who threw in a few kernels at a
time. It is said the grinding on this mill was rather tedious, and yet it served
the milling purpose of the neighborhood.

   The Fairfield Steam Flouring Mill was built in the year 1858 by Joseph
Haskett. The building is a frame and is two and a half stories high. New
machinery has been added from time to time, keeping it fully up-to-date in
milling processes. It has a good reputation and does good work. It has a
capacity of one hundred barrels of flour per day of twenty-four hours.

   Reuben Hawkins, of Union township, built the first mill in the eastern part
of the county. He settled on Lilly creek, about a mile northeast of Jerome, in
1844, and soon after built his mill. He manufactured the buhrs for the mill out
of two large boulders near the mill site. The mill was operated by water power
and ground very slowly, but made a very fair article of meal. Hawkins attached a
turning lathe and, being an expert workman in wood, soon had all the work he
could do, making tables, stands, chairs and various other articles of furniture,
which he sold to the settlers of the adjacent country.

   James Lancaster also had a small mill on Lilly creek just northwest of
Jerome, which was a rude affair, operated by hand with some help from the water
of the creek. The proprietor took half of the grain for toll.

   In 1847 the Brown brothers erected a water mill on Big Wild Cat, just south
of Jerome. It was a combination mill; that is, it did both grinding and sawing
and was thus operated until 1860, when it was torn down and the machinery used
in the construction of a new mill on the same location. It has a grinding
capacity of one hundred bushels of grain a day.

   Moses Jones, of West Liberty, erected a large water mill just northeast of
the village in 1849. This was a large three-story building with two runs of
buhrs and a saw attached. It was an excellent water mill and was operated until
1862, when it was completely destroyed by fire.

   In the year 1875 William Jessup moved a steam flouring mill from Kokomo to
West Liberty. It has since been remodeled and improved so that it is a modern,
well-equipped mill and regarded as a good acquisition for that community.

A COMBINATION MILL.

   The first mill in Liberty township was erected by Luther Segraves and stood
about one mile south of Greentown on Big Wild Cat. This was a combination mill,
sawing lumber and grinding grain, as the customer desired. This mill did a good
business and was in operation until about the year 1863.

   William Lindley erected a sawmill in the southern part of the township, on
Big Wild Cat, and, in 1850, sold it to a man by the name of Dorman. Five years
later Dorman built an addition to the original building, put in two runs of
buhrs and added steam power and did a very good business. This was known as the
Dorman Mill.

   The Greentown roller flouring mills were built and began business in 1889.
They are thirty-two by forty-two feet in dimension, with all needed
outbuildings, and are built of brick. They have a daily capacity of seventy
barrels of flour. The proprietors of the mill deal in flour, meal, feed, and
grain of all kinds.

   In 1842 Joshua Barnett commenced a milldam across Wild Cat, in the southeast
corner of Ervin township. He finished this dam in 1843 and built a sawmill with
corn-cracker attachment in 1846. This mill was conveyed to Moses Cromwell, who
converted it into a gristmill, and it became known as the Cromwell mill.

   In 1847 Robert Coate built a combined saw and gristmill at Poplar Grove. So
great was the demand for lumber from this mill he ran it day and night, weekday
and Sunday.

WATER MILL FLOUR POPULAR.

   William Grant built a gristmill on Big Wild Cat, near the present location of
the Critchlow Brothers' slaughter pens, in 1847, and a little later he built a.
sawmill near the gristmill. These events were the cause of great rejoicing among
the inhabitants of the young county seat, who were thus afforded opportunity of
getting-both breadstuff and building material almost right at home.

   This mill was transferred to Moses Cromwell, who, leaving the mill at the
boundary line, came and operated it by water power very successfully for several
years.

   Those water-power mills ground rather slowly, and as the millers did not do
an exchange business, but tolled each man's grist and ground it for him, often
compelling him to wait quite awhile for his "grinding," especially if there were
others in ahead of him. The writer remembers as a boy taking grain to the mill
to be ground, going as early in the day as he could, taking a lunch and fishing
outfit and spending the day fishing in the millrace while the grist was being
ground.   It was an experience not altogether bad.

   The good housewives of the elder day thought at least that the flour ground
at the old-time water-power mills was better than the flour made at the steam
mills.

   The first steam flouring mill at Kokomo was the Leas mill, built nearly fifty
years ago across the railroad and opposite the Lake Erie Elevator. Worley Leas
was, for many years, the proprietor. In later years it was known as the Howard
Flouring Mills. The last proprietors were Darnall & Dawson. Lately it has been
discontinued.

   The second mill was the Spring Mills, built at the southeast corner of
Jefferson street and Indiana avenue, by George W. Hocker more than forty years
since.

   Its present proprietor is C. M. Barlow, who has had charge of it for fifteen
or twenty years.

   Mr. Barlow also does an extensive feed and grain business through the L. E. &
W. and P., C. & St. L. elevators.

   The third mill was erected in the fall of 1896 and is known as the Clover
Leaf Mills, and is a twenty-five barrel daily mill. It is a modern roller
merchant and gristmill. L. W. Smith is the proprietor.

HAS UNDERGONE A CHANGE.

   The milling business has undergone a great change in the past sixty years.

   Formerly the mills ground each man's ,grist separately and for the owner
taking toll before grinding. That necessitated every customer waiting at the
mill for his grinding or else returning home and going back another time for the
flour and bran. Later they began an exchange business, weighing the grain and
giving a given number of pounds of flour and bran for each bushel of wheat. At
this time most men sell their grain and buy flour and feed as needed; and the
miller buys the grain, manufactures it into flour, meal and feed and sells it to
the trade.

TANNERIES.

   In the early history of the county there were numerous tanneries. All the
towns and villages and many country communities had its shoemaker or shoemakers.
Almost every family did its shoe repairing.

   Of the several tanneries it may be mentioned that just east of New London
there was a good tannery: that the Judkin brothers, of Alto, had a small tannery
on the north bank of Little Wild Cat just north of Mt. Zion church, which they
later on moved nearer their places of business at Alto, one of them being a
shoemaker and the other a cabinetmaker. Barnhart Learner was then a resident of
the township and a shoemaker also. It is said that Francis Galway was the first
tanner at Jerome, starting a tannery in 1847. The enterprise proved very
remunerative to the proprietor, who operated it successfully for twelve years.
In 1859 it was purchased by John Willitts, who ran it for four years and was
then allowed to go down. Joshua Galway started a tanyard at Vermont in the year
1850 and kept it up five or six years. It proved a paying venture.

   Early residents of Kokomo remember that in very early times a tannery was
commenced just west of the log jail. The exact date of the beginning and by whom
started are forgotten. This much is authentic history, that the Cains came into
possession of it in 1867, forty-one years ago, and that of all the tanyards of
the county it is the sole survivor. The Cains have operated it in connection
with their harness making business during all these intervening years.

TRAVELING SHOEMAKERS.

   These early residents further say that in the early times there were
traveling shoemakers, who went from house to house and made shoes and boots for
the families, boarding and living with the family while making the family stock
of boots and shoes. That was the protective principle in active operation:
home-grown hides, home tanneries and home-made boots and shoes.

   Those whose memory goes back half a century will recall that there were then
many good-bearing apple orchards: that the fruit was of superior excellence;
that the Vandever Pippin, Yellow Bell-flower, Maiden Blush, Golden Russet and
Early Harvest varieties were the leading kinds; and as they recall these facts
will wonder where those early orchards in a country so new came from, and will
be interested in these notes. Charles Harmon and J. W. Heaton planted apple
orchards at an early date. Harmon went to Williams' nursery, at Indianapolis,
taking several days for the trip, and bought one hundred trees. Heaton bought
forty trees of a tree peddler from Clinton county and set them out in a
deadening from which the logs had not yet been removed. John Heaton planted the
first nursery in Liberty township about two miles southwest of Green-town, near
the site of Richville church, and many of the early orchards were started from
this nursery.

THE FIRST NURSERY.

   It is said that Joseph Brown, of Union township, had the first nursery in the
county, starting it from stock brought from Richmond in 1850. The first orchards
in Union township were set out in 1846 by Jesse Lancaster and Charles P.
Baldwin, on the Farrington and Galway farms joining Jerome on the east. The
trees were carried from Fairmount, in Grant county, on horseback. Lancaster
carried fifty-five trees and Baldwin thirty-five. They were tied in bundles,
each having two bundles fastened together, a bundle on each side of the horse
and the tops reaching backwards. In this way they threaded their way through the
forest along a wagon trace, and there was along that way a distance of ten miles
without a house.

   The pioneers of the county seemed to have been impressed that this was a good
fruit country and they began early to plant orchards, and these citations are
but a few examples of how the early settlers secured orchards. Within a few
years there were nurseries in various parts of the county, enabling the farmers
to secure nursery stock conveniently and at little cost. Howard county has never
grown apples in such quantities as to have large quantities for export, but
usually has had plenty for home consumption.

   The county could become a good apple-growing district if enough interest and
care should be given the industry. Her other products are sufficiently
profitable to call attention from this business.

TRAPPING AND HUNTING.

   Trapping and hunting may nut be said to have been a regular industry of the
county, but yet there have been a few trappers and hunters who were quite
successful in this business in the early years of its settlement, and the great
majority of the early settlers supplemented their efforts to feed and clothe
themselves and families by hunting. Of the early pioneers who engaged in
trapping, "Uncle Jim" Brooks, of Harrison township, was probably chief. James,
at the age of twenty-seven, and his father left Hamilton county in the fall of
1838 and followed an Indian trail through to the reserve and camped with a party
of land hunters south of the present site of New-London. In a few days they
built some bark wigwums on Little Honey creek and trapped during the winter. The
products of their toil were the skins of seventy otter. During the summer of
1839 they caught one hundred and forty coons on Shaw's prairie. In the fall of
1840 they built some bark huts on the land afterwards owned my Foster, near
Kokomo, and trapped above the town extensively. They caught a great many coons
and wildcats. It being very cold, they frequently found coons frozen in the
snow. One evening the father, returning from up the creek, found a frozen
turkey, but before he bot [sic] home dropped it near a button bush pond near
where the courthouse now stands.

   James, going out to look for it, found it in the clutches of a wildcat, so he
set two otter traps and the next morning went out and found that he had caught
the wildcat. The next spring they found five bee-trees in an Indian sugar camp.
These they cut down and by the use of moss strained out seventeen gallons of
fine honey.

   In that day wolf hides sold for seventy-five cents and scalps for one dollar
and fifty cents. Wildcat hides sold for eight dollars, otter hides from six to
nine dollars, and deer hides from fifty cents to one dollar each. In a history
of Honey Creek township is found: "The early pioneers had very little to sell,
and what they had could not be sold for money. Wild game and wild honey seem to
have been the principal articles offered in exchange for the necessary
commodities of life."

A BEE HUNTER.

   Of one of the pioneer hunters and trappers of Union township it was said:
"James Husted was an odd character, who achieved quite a reputation among the
early settlers as a successful bee hunter and trapper. He was an unmarried man
and lived, entirely alone in a little rail pen, which he built about two and a
half miles east of Jerome. He made no improvements but spent all his time in the
woods, trapping during the fall and winter season and hunting wild honey in the
summer. From the sale of the furs and wild honey he realized considerable money,
which he hoarded away with miserly care. He remained in this part of the country
until the game became scarce, when he packed his few household goods and, with
them on his back, departed for more congenial quarters further west."

   Of the pioneers of Liberty township it is said: "The forest supplied the meat
from the bountiful store of game, in quantity and quality according to demand.
Deer were everywhere abundant and afforded the chief means of subsistence to
many families during the first two or three years' sojourn in the woods.
Jonathan Fisher states that in one year he killed one hundred and twenty-five
within a few miles of his home. A man by the name of Ray was a hunter of
considerable note and frequently killed four or five deer a day, of which he
kept nothing but the hams and hides. The other parts of the carcass were given
to anyone who desired them, or left in the woods to be devoured by the wolves.
Wild turkeys were so plentiful as to be no rarity and were considered game not
worth the ammunition required to kill them. An occasional bear w<as seen, but
the majority of these animals had disappeared several years prior to the first
settlement by the whites. A large one was killed a short distance east of Green
town in 1846, which weighed over four hundred pounds. This was the only one ever
killed in the township so far as now can be learned."

   Wolves roamed the woods in great numbers and proved very destructive to
stock. Farmers were obliged to build tight pens for their hogs and sheep; yet
despite all their precautions an occasional lamb or porker would fall a prey to
these gaunt scourges of the forest. In time, these animals disappeared, many of
them being killed by the early settlers for the reward offered by the state for
their scalps.

MONEY WAS SCARCE.

   Money in those early days was a scarce article and many families were
compelled to deny themselves the luxuries which today are classed as
necessities. Deer skins, ginseng and maple sugar, of which large quantities were
made every spring, were articles of commercial importance, by means of which
many families kept themselves supplied with groceries, dry goods, etc.

   In Howard township a man named Dix is recalled, who settled on the John
Barnes farm and made a few improvements. He is remembered- as a noted
backwoodsman, whose greatest delight was hunting and trapping, which he followed
very successfully. By the sale of deer skins, venison hams and wild honey, he
managed to supply his family with what groceries and few articles of
wearing-apparel they needed, while he went clad in the conventional buckskin
garb common among the pioneer hunters sixty years ago. After game became scarce
he sold out and went West.

MAPLE SUGAR INDUSTRY.

   Reference has already been made to the fact that the making and sale of maple
sugar was a not inconsiderable industry in pioneer times. Milton Garrigus states
he and his father made eight hundred pounds of sugar and a barrel of molasses in
the spring of 1847 on their claim in Liberty township. He further states that
the Indians delighted to make sugar and molasses in their immense sugar orchards
and that on the tract where he "squatted," in 1847, there was an abundance of
bark troughs and spiles, rude stables for ponies, big troughs for storing sugar
water, where they had been used by the Indians for sugar making.

   The only recorded instance of trouble between the Indians and the early white
settlers grew out of Charles O. Fry, in Union township, settling too near an
Indian sugar camp a short distance southwest of Jerome. He erected his first
cabin near an Indian sugar camp, which so exasperated the red men, who were in
no wise friendly toward the settler, that serious results very nearly followed.
The savages looked upon Fry's action as an encroachment, and gathering a number
of their braves together, they rode through the country, tore down a number of
newly-erected huts and unoccupied cabins, burned fences and seized the stock
belonging to several settlers. Fry and Joseph Brown visited the Indian camp to
make reparation for the offense committed, which was rather more easily effected
than they expected. The chief said all would be well and no further depredations
be committed, providing the white man (meaning Fry) would procure for them a
load of hay for their ponies.

   Brown and Fry were compelled to go to Marion for the hay, an undertaking
attended with many difficulties, as they were compelled to cut their road
through the woods for almost half of the distance.

   The hay was unloaded at the Indian village in due time and thereafter all was
peace between the red skins and settlers.

   There were countless numbers of thrifty sugar trees all over the county, and
if the county had had waste lands for their growth and preservation, the maple
sugar industry of Howard county would now outrival Vermont.

   The truth of the matter is the lands of Howard county are too fertile to
permit their use for industries that are leaders in other states.

HEAD OF THE HARDWARE BUSINESS.

   Of the commercial industries of Howard county, the hardware firm now known as
the Armstrong-Landon Company is easily at the head, both in point of continuous
existence and in the volume of business transacted, having had a continuous
existence of more than fifty years. Very few of the residents of Howard county
now living can recall that small hardware establishment on the east side of the
square just opened by the firm of Dr. J. A. James, Dr. Horace A. Armstrong and
Addison F. Armstrong. That was in the spring of 1856. Two members of this new
firm were prominent physicians of the growing town and the third was a young man
just embarking in a business career that was to prove eminently honorable and
successful and whose business enterprise was to be of uncalculable benefit to
the future city of Kokomo in many ways. The senior member, Dr. J. A. James,
combined in a marked degree the intelligent physician and the public-spirited
citizen. These two men contributed largely to the development of Kokomo on a
broad and enduring basis. Two years after the beginning of their business it had
outgrown its room and they were compelled to seek more roomy quarters.
Accordingly they moved to the Bohan and Ashley corner, where the K., M. & W.
traction station now is, into a room sixteen by eighty feet, at that time the
second largest business room in the village.

   They continued to occupy this for four years, or until 1862, and their
business had increased so that they must have more room. They therefore bought a
lot on the east side of the square next to the southeast corner and began the
erection of a three-story building. When nearly completed this building was
blown down by a tornado and in the downfall carried with it the storeroom
occupied by the firm and also the Tribune office.

   Undaunted by this double misfortune the firm immediately began to prepare to
rebuild, and completed the new building the same year. They were, however, not
through with misfortune, for in 1867 the block in which they were was destroyed
by fire. They rebuilt the same year, but this time only a two-story building.

  During 1867 the senior member, J. A. James, retired from business and was
succeeded by Josiah Beeson, the firm name being Armstrong, Beeson & Company.
Before another year had passed Dr. Horace A. Armstrong died and his interest was
purchased by Dr. Edward A. Armstrong. For two years the firm remained under the
old name, when Mr. Beeson sold his interest to Messrs. Zimri, Nixon and Isaac
Ellis, and the name of the firm was changed to Armstrong. Nixon & Company. This
firm continued until 1874, when the death of Mr. Nixon caused another change.
The members composing the new firm were A. F. Armstrong, Dr. E. A. Armstrong, J.
C. Pickett and George W. Landon, under the firm name of Armstrong, Pickett &
Company. In the spring of 1875, the firm, finding their business increased to
such an extent as demanded still further enlargement of their facilities,
decided to erect a building capable of accommodating it and began the
construction of a storeroom opposite the southeast corner of the public square.
It is sixty-six feet front on Sycamore street and one hundred and thirty-two
feet long, and is four stories and a basement high, with heavy brick walls and
stone foundation.

   It is conveniently arranged and a building hard to surpass for the purposes
for which it was erected.

KEEP A LARGE STOCK.

   A large stock of the latest and best makes of farm machinery, builders'
supplies, stoves and ranges, a stock of buggies and harness and a complete stock
of general hardware is carried by the firm. In addition they have a tin shop and
a full line of tin and galvanized iron supplies. Near by is a lumber yard, well
stocked. They are thus enabled to supply the varied wants of a wide range of
customers. They have a large, first-floor salesroom, thus providing their
friends and customers with a comfortable waiting and resting room.

   January 1, 1883, Mr. Pickett retired from the firm and E. S. Hunt entered,
and the name of the firm was changed to Armstrong, Landon & Company. In 1888 the
firm name was changed to Armstrong, Landon & Hunt Company. On the death of Mr.
Hunt, some years later, the firm name was again changed to Armstrong. Landon &
Company, which remains to the present time. A. F. Armstrong continued as
president until his death about five years since. The present officers are:
George W. Landon, president; Thomas C. Howe, vice-president; H. Neck Landon,
secretary, W. A. Easter, treasurer.

   When E. S. Hunt entered the firm in January, 1883, the Hunt lumber yard was
taken over into the property and management of the company. This property
consisted of an extensive lumber yard at the intersection of the P. C. & St. L.
Railroad and Monroe street. Later the planing mill was added. The planing mill
part of this industry seems to have had its beginning with the Hunt brothers,
Henry and Ezra, at New London, while the water power was abundant and the
industrial future of New London was radiant with hope. Later, with the coming of
the F. & K. Railroad, Russiaville gave promise of more substantial business
returns and the planing mill was moved to that place. A few years later the Hunt
brothers transferred the business to the location referred to in Kokomo. A
little while prior to 1883 Ezra had come into the sole management of the lumber
business by the retirement of Henry. Since taking control of this branch of
their work they have developed and expanded it until it is one of the important
parts of the county's industries. They are engaged in the manufacture of doors
and sash, the dealing in all kinds of lumber, the manufacture of all kinds of
building material for the interior finish of private residences, consisting of
stairways, offices and bank work, and the contracting for the construction and
erection of all kinds of buildings. The company has engaged extensively in the
manufacture of interior work for churches, church seats and pulpits, having done
work of this kind in various parts of the Union. Although this firm began
business here in the infancy of the county, much earlier than any other firm,
and has continuously engaged in the same business, and has at all times put push
and vigorous business methods into it, they have not monopolized their lines of
business.

PLANING MILL BUSINESS.

   S. C. Moore built the S. C. Moore planing mill at the northwest intersection
of the L. E. & W. Railroad and Jefferson street in 1874 and operated it until
his death in 1905, a period of thirty-years. During the last ten years his son,
Edward S., was associated with him, and the firm was S. C. Moore & Son. At the
death of the elder Moore, Elmer Danner became associated with Edward S. Moore
and the firm is Moore & Danner, and do a general contracting business in
connection with their mill business.

   Since the organization of the first hardware firm there has been quite a
number of others organized, and, after doing a good business for a number of
years, for one reason or another have discontinued—George Hocker in the sixties,
and later Bruner & Coate; Hutchings; Owen & Company, and others whose names are
not remembered now. And so of the lumber business.

HEADING AND STAVE BUSINESS.

   Prior to the discovery of natural gas in 1886, Lawrence Snider was probably
the leading manufacturer of Kokomo, being in the heading and stave business. He
purchased oak timber throughout Howard and adjoining counties and brought it to
his factory at the north end of Kokomo and manufactured it into staves and
heading, which he shipped to New York and Philadelphia. He began the business in
1878 and did ten thousand dollars' worth of work the first year and four years
later increased it to seventy-five thousand dollars.

   Of those engaging in manufacturing enterprises were W. H. Sumption and later
W. H. Sumption & Son, who were engaged in the manufacture of buggies, carriages
and spring wagons from 1870 to many years later. They employed a number of men
and did good work and a good business.

MANUFACTURED BUGGIES.

   Walter Hooper came to Kokomo in. 1865 and erected a small blacksmith shop and
began the manufacture of buggies. During his first year's business he sold one
thousand, six hundred and sixty-five dollars' worth of new work, and eight years
later sold fourteen thousand five hundred and sixteen dollars' worth. He also
made carriages, spring wagons and road wagons.

   The oldest continuous dry goods store in Kokomo is the Bee Hive. This store
was commenced in 1872 by Samuel Davis. The firm name was S. Davis & Sons and was
one of the leading business firms of the city. By the withdrawal of Walter and
the death of Samuel, Henry C. wras left as sole proprietor. In the year 1901 Mr.
Davis sold to William H. Turner, who has continued the business since.

   Nearly thirty years agro Block & Thalman came to Kokomo and began
merchandising on a diminutive scale, with a limited stock of notions and
low-priced goods. By fair dealing and catering to the wants of the masses they
rapidly built up a trade, and with the increasing trade they increased their
stock in variety, quantity and quality until now they have probably the fullest
stock and greatest variety of goods in the city.

   The White House was built some eighteen years ago and has been extended
across the alley since. The Kokomo Dry Goods Store is of considerably more
recent date and does a fine business.

VARIOUS KINDS OF STORES.

   Those whose memory goes back to the times immediately after the Civil war
will recall the sign in front of the clothing store on the north side of the
square and west of the alley which read, "D. Friday." Everybody then knew D.
Friday and his obliging young clerk, King Kennedy. D. Friday's clothing store is
the oldest in Kokomo today. D. Friday is no longer here to welcome his customers
with a bland smile, and when he had put on a customer a coat two or three sizes
too large for him, would take up the slack on the back with his hand and declare
that the coat was "shust a feat." King Kennedy has remained with the store and
since the death of Mr. Friday has been the proprietor through the generosity of
his friend.

   The Finch-Pennington Company rank second as successors to Strickland &
Company. Walter H. Davis ranks third in point of time.

   In the fall of 1860 the industrial interest of Kokomo received a large
accession in the coming of T. Jay and family, Rufus Dolman and family, and
Ithamer Russell and family. Soon after coming to Kokomo they entered into
parnership and began several lines of business.

   They established a packing plant on the east side of town next to the P., C.
& St. L. Railroad, buying hogs and slaughtering them and curing and shipping the
meat and lard. They continued this business for perhaps ten years. They also
established and carried on an extensive grocery store establishment. They also
bought grain at the Lake Erie elevators, known then as the Jay & Dolman
warehouse. They also established a private bank, known as the T. Jay & Company
banking house, which was continued until after the First National Bank was
established in 1865.

   Mr. Jay was prominent in the industrial life of Kokomo until his death. After
his death the business was continued under the firm name of Russell, Dolman &
Company. Some of their earlier lines of business were discontinued. Buying and
shipping of grain was their chief business. Mr. D. P. Davis was their
gentlemanly foreman at the elevator and was a very expert grain inspector.

   Members of the firm held considerable stock in the First National Bank and
were connected with the bank as officers.

MAKING BRICK.

   The brick industry has been of more or less importance from very early times
in the county. There has been an abundance of good clay in all parts of the
county and in the earlier times cheap fuel everywhere—wood.

   Captain Harry Stewart is the authority that his father, Henry C. Stewart, was
the pioneer brick manufacturer of Kokomo. About the year 1847 he had a brickyard
at the northeast corner of the intersection of High (Superior) and Buckeye
streets. He obtained the clay for the bricks from Buckeye and Washington streets
at the bluff of Wild Cat, the road supervisor allowing him to take the clay in
making the cut for a roadway to the creek. The next year his brickyard was
changed to the southwest corner of a six-acre tract of land lying just north of
Walnut street, and whose western boundary was near Webster street. Wood was used
for fuel. Mr. Stewart relates that instead of using the old-fashioned—as now
known—mixing or tempering wheel, that oxen were used. They were driven round and
round in the mud, tramping it until thoroughly mixed. The oxen would step in the
steps made in former rounds and thus would work the mud into ridges and ruts. To
overcome this the driver would reverse the direction of the oxen. The first
brick masons in Kokomo were John Albright and Harles Ashley, and the first brick
buildings were built in 1848; one a store building on the comer where the Darby
block now stands, and the other a blacksmith shop.

   The limestone industry has also been of considerable importance from very
early times. John and Charles Morrow, brothers, began the quarrying of building
stone nearly sixty years ago on Pete's branch, near the present Defenbaugh stone
quarry, on a somewhat limited scale, but sufficient to supply the demand for
several miles around. A little later they also began burning lime to supply, a
demand for that article in plastering and stone and brick building. The first
lime was burned on log heaps. Logs twelve to sixteen feet in length were cut and
piled in heaps four or five feet high and to a length of fifteen or twenty feet,
and upon the top of this heap several wagon loads of limestone were heaped and
then the log heap was fired. When the heap was well fired and the mass of stone
became hot the popping and exploding of the unbroken stone was like diminutive
artillery. This was allowed to burn down and cool and made a fair article of
lime. Somewhat later two kilns were erected for burning lime, and a far better
quality of lime was burned with less fuel. In later years the demand for the
stone for various building purposes consumed practically all the stone quarried,
and, being more profitable than the lime business, the burning of lime was
discontinued.

   The Morrow brothers sold to George W. Defenbaugh in the early sixties and he
operated and developed the quarries until his death in 1906, doing an extensive
business in building and crushed stone.

FIRST MACADAM STREETS.

   When Kokomo began building macadam streets the demand for broken stone
increased amazingly and a stone quarry was opened on the east side of the L. E.
& W. Railroad, about forty rods south of Wild Cat creek. A vast quantity of
stone was taken out and hauled upon the streets and there broken by hand. After
this was abandoned another quarry was opened on the west side of the railroad
opposite the abandoned quarry. A power stone crusher was introduced and the
manufacture of crushed stone was commenced. This plant has been operated on an
extensive scale for several years by J. M. Leach & Company. The demand has been
heavy the present season for crushed stone for shipping and home use in building
macadam roads.

   In recent years the K., M. & W. traction line opened a stone quarry on West
Markland avenue, just west of Courtland avenue, for crushed stone for their
railroad tracks.

   During the past year L. B. Hodgin and others have operated and expanded the
business of the plant until they have been compelled to operate it day and night
and are now arranging to expend ten thousand dollars for new machinery and
improvements.

   Kokomo crushed stone is not only exclusively used at home, but is also
shipped in large quantities to various parts of the state.

   Following Henry C. Stewart in the making of brick have been many. Chief of
these have been William B. Morgan, on the north side, and John M. Leach, on the
south side. Mr. Morgan died several years since and his business has been
discontinued.

   Soon after Kokomo began her rapid growth, because of the discovery of natural
gas in her midst, John M. Leach & Company, foreseeing the demand and perhaps
already realizing it for a far greater supply of brick, erected a brick plant on
the L. E. & W. Railroad just south of the city and began the manufacture of
brick on a large scale, and found a ready market for his entire output. Several
years since he had used all the clay within the immediate neighborhood of the
plant and the company was compelled to go back from the plant to buy clay and to
ship it to the plant. For shipping purposes they operate a dummy railroad,
having a small locomotive and a number of small railroad dump cars. For several
years they used natural gas for fuel in burning bricks; a few years since they
changed to coal.

   The firm of J. M. Leach & Company do an ice business also. They began with
the cutting of natural ice, first building an ice-house above the city near the
Ohio street bridge, and another at the north end of the stone quarry on the west
side of the railroad. About fifteen years since they began the manufacture of
artificial ice, using the natural ice to supplement the artificial in supplying
the trade. Soon they were able to supply the demand with the artificial ice and
they discontinued the storing of natural ice. Their original factory was on the
south side of Wild Cat creek, near the east side of the Lake Erie Railroad.
Their business had so increased that in the year 1903 they built a large,
substantial brick building fronting on Main street and east of the original one
for their ice factory. This is a modern, up-to-date ice factory.

   In the manufacture of ice they use distilled water taken from a well drilled
eighty-five feet into the limestone. The stratum of water at this level seems to
be inexhaustible. A test, made in 1901, near the ice plant well, of two
eight-inch wells in this water stratum, showed that, pumping at the rate of two
million gallons of water every twenty-four hours, the water could not be lowered
below a given level. This test was made to determine the location of a municipal
waterworks plant.

WHEN KOKOMO WAS YOUNG.

   Prior to the fall of 1886, Howard county was solely an agricultural community
and Kokomo and the other towns of the countv were trading points. Kokomo was a
thrifty town of about four thousand people and was located wholly upon the north
side of Wild Cat creek. There were no factories as Kokomo of today knows them.
There were several small factories supplying local demands. The citizens were
wideawake and progressive and doing well in a moderate way. About this time
natural gas, which had been known in Pennsylvania and Canada for a number of
years, was being developed in Ohio in and about Findlay. No effort had as yet
been made to learn if it underlaid Indiana territory. Some enterprising Howard
county citizens determined to make a test. Accordingly a paper, which can hardly
be called a subscription paper but rather a memorandum of an agreement, was
drafted as follows:

                                    "KOKOMO, INDIANA, March 22, 1886.
   "The object of this paper is to ascertain if there are a sufficient number of
persons in this city willing to subscribe one hundred dollars each for the
purpose of boring for gas a distance of not less than two thousand (2,000) feet.
The names of those willing to subscribe the above amount ($100), provided the
scheme is properly and satisfactorily organized, are as follows: A. G. Comstock,
D. C. Spraker, J. C. Blacklidge, J. M. Leach, S. Davis & Sons, Armstrong-Landon
Company, R. Q. Wilson, J. C. Dolman, John W. Slider, E. Quaintance, Russell
Dolman & Company, J. O. Henderson, J. McLean Moulder, W. H. Sellers, J. W.
Cooper, J. B. Michener. Henry Hunt. Dixon & Company, Bell & Purdum, W. A.
Stuart, G. W. Defenbaugh, George Stidger."

   This paper, with the signatures, has recently been presented to the Carnegie
Library for public preservation.

   A. Y. Comstock and D. C. Spraker did most of the work of circulating the
paper and securing subscribers. Although the citizenship of Kokomo and vicinity
were liberal and progressive, they did not fall over each other in their eager
haste to sign this agreement to pay one hundred dollars for boring a deep hole
into the ground. Probably none of them had ever seen a real for-sure gas well.
Some of them remembered the attempt to make a hole near the old Cromwell mill,
and that, after going down several hundred feet, the tools became fast and the
project had to be abandoned.

   Mr. Comstock had been instrumental in promoting other enterprises, notably
the F. & K. Railroad, and so was a man of experience in such matters, but found
he was up against the real thing in securing the necessary signatures. The work
of promoting this venture was commenced in March and it was mid-September before
the necessary twenty-two subscribers were obtained and the preparations for
boring the two-thousand-foot hole were completed and the actual drilling commenced.

   After the work of circulating this paper had commenced, but during the long
wait while the necessary twenty-two men were being hunted, the first producing
natural gas well in Indiana was drilled in near Eaton, in Delaware county.

THE SEARCH FOR NATURAL GAS.

   The contract for drilling the well was let and the first "rig" ever seen by
citizens of Kokomo was put up on the south side of Wild Cat, in a cornfield
belonging to A. F. Armstrong, near the southwest intersection of Armstrong
avenue and Water street.

   All that section of country lying south of Wild Cat creek and west of the
Lake Erie Railroad was then farm land and few and far between were the farm houses.

   On the 6th of October the drill penetrated Trenton rock and natural gas burst
from its confinement and gas well No. 1 was a reality. The gas was cased in and
a pipe elbowed off about twenty-five feet from the well and ignited. Thousands
of people came from far and near to see the wonder. It was not a large producer;
the flames did not shoot high in the air; neither did it roar so tremendously as
did some of the mammoth wells drilled in later: but the well, such as it was,
was easily worth going miles to see. It was not necessary to "bore two thousand
feet." Gas was found in the Trenton rock at a depth of a little more than nine
hundred feet. All the subsequent drillings discovered the gas deposits at
practically the same depth. Arrangements were soon made for drilling well No. 2
at a distance of about eighty rods southwest of No. 1. No arrangements had as
yet been made for utilizing the find. The news, however, went out over the
country like wild fire that gas had been found at Kokomo and people of various
classes began flocking to Kokomo.

   The earlier ones were men who were interested in exploiting-gas wells, either
in drilling gas wells or in leasing lands for gas wells and forming companies
for piping and selling the gas. Another class of men were those who foresaw a
rise in real estate because of the "find" and who rushed in to buy for the
rise—the land speculator—and another class were the manufacturers, who were
looking for a bonus and cheap fuel. Well No. 2, when drilled in, was a producing
well and the belief was confirmed that Kokomo was in natural gas territory.

A BOOM IN REAL ESTATE.

   In the spring of 1887 real estate was on a boom. Several syndicates from
abroad had come in and invested in Kokomo and adjacent Howard county real
estate. The John Sherman or Mansfield syndicate was the leader in the amount and
character of its investment. The John M. Hamlin or Hamlin-Patterson syndicate
was a close second. Several Kokomo people awoke to the fact that Kokomo real
estate was a good thing to possess and the active competition rapidly advanced
real estate. There was no less activity among natural gas men; lands were leased
for gas, the lessor agreeing to pay so much per well annually so long as it
produced gas in merchantable quantities, generally agreeing to drill a gas wrell
for each forty acres of land within stated times, agreeing also to pay an annual
rental of a certain price per acre until the wells were drilled. Companies were
organized to pipe the gas to points where it could be used and to sell it when
so piped. The Kokomo Natural Gas & Oil Company was organized to furnish Kokomo
with gas.

   The first years of these natural gas companies they were very liberal in
their terms of sale, giving all a flat rate of one dollar per month for cook
stoves, and one dollar and fifty cents for first heater., one dollar for second
heater and seventy-five cents for each additional heater per month for seven
months each year; and the supply was not sparing, either.

   About the same time factory men began to appear, seeking locations in the gas
belt and free fuel and a bonus in cash or its equivalent as an incentive to
come. Meanwhile several rigs were busy drilling wells, and practically all wells
drilled east of a line extending southwest through the west line of Kokomo were
producing wells, some of them being of mammoth proportions, notably one, known
as the Shrader well, located on the Fred Schrader farm one and one-half miles
southeast of Kokomo. This was probably the strongest producer in this gas field.
When turned open and the gas ignited it sent up a great circular flame sixty to
seventy-five feet in height, with a great roar that could be heard for miles. It
lighted up the country for miles around and the farmers harvested wheat after
nightfall by its light.

   The Hon. Daniel W. Voorheis. who was at Kokomo engaged in a cause in court,
soon after this well was drilled in was taken out one evening to see it. After
witnessing the wonderful display of the burning well he declared it to be a
sight worth a trip half across the continent to see. People were very wasteful
of the gas in the first years after the discovery. They acted as if there was an
inexhaustible quantity. Strong wells were opened and fired and permitted to burn
for weeks, serving no good purpose except to light up the country. The writer
recalls that the Byron Reed well south of town burned for several weeks,
lighting up the country for miles around and rendering the roads fairly light
for a distance of three or four miles out from town. In addition the farmers had
large flambeaus burning throughout the night. Thus an immense quantity of this,
the best of all fuels, was wasted. Practically all the factories were operated
by this fuel for several years. In addition two large pipe lines were put in to
convey the gas to Chicago. Another line carried it to Logansport, another to
Frankfort and Lafayette and another to Peru. It appeared that everyone was
making a heroic effort to exhaust the supply in the shortest possible time. And
yet the suggestion at that time that the supply would be exhausted was scoffed at.

EXTENDING THE PIPE LINES.

   The pipe lines that carried Howard county gas from home were: The Lafayette,
which passed through Tipton county and into southeastern Howard. Murdock was at
the head of this company; the Logansport line, which, passing to the west of
Kokomo, entered the gas field on the Colonel Blanche farm and extended east on
the south line of Center township and thence eastwardly almost to the east line
of the county, with branches to the south reaching into Tipton county. Hon. S.
P. Sheerin was at the head of this company and it drew away the gas for about
eight years. Their leases provided that the landowner should have a well drilled
within one year from the making of the lease; it provided for a well for each
forty acres of land, the deferred wells to be drilled at intervals of one year
each; that the company was to furnish the owner or his tenant free gas for
domestic use and to pay two hundred dollars annually for each well so long as it
produced gas in merchantable quantities and to pay a rental for the land not
drilled on. This company leased nearly all lands on the south side. The Indiana
Natural Gas Company had their pipe lines laid diagonally through Howard township
to the pumping station west of Green-town, thence east into Grant county, and
had the central and eastern parts of the county leased for. The Peru pipe line
extended into the northeastern part of the county; the Kokomo Natural Gas
Company covered the country adjacent to the city; the Plate Glass Company had a
large pipe line reaching east from their factory several miles; the J. M. Leach
Company went east from the brick plant into Grant county; and the manufacturers'
line extended east from North street to Jackson township. These several pipe
lines were busily engaged in draining away the gas supply. For several years the
pressure has been diminishing and the supply is now largely exhausted.

   The Indiana Natural Gas Company, to comply with a provision of the statute
that the business of the natural gas companies should be to supply Indiana
cities with gas before shipping to foreign points, laid a system of gas mains in
Kokomo soon after going into the gas field, established an office here and sold
gas in competition with the other company. Later, when the wells of the Kokomo
company were exhausted, they supplied the Kokomo company's mains with gas and
have been the chief source of the supply of gas for citizens of Kokomo since.
For several years both companies furnished gas for the flat rate, but for the
past six or seven years there has been a meter rate service of twenty-five cents
per thousand feet. Not only has the rate been higher, but the service has been
inadequate at times and the citizens of Kokomo are largely turning to coal for
heating purposes.

   The J. M. Leach Company has practically abandoned supplying natural gas to
factories and is now quite extensively engaged in furnishing gas for domestic
use at a flat rate of three dollars for cook stoves and four dollars and fifty
cents for heaters per month.

PUMPING STATIONS.

   To transport the gas in pipe lines to Chicago and other distant points
required additional pressure and thus pumping stations along the pipe line was
necessary. The main pumping station on the Indiana Natural Gas Company's line
(Chicago) was located on the north side of the Kokomo and Greentown gravel road,
on the west side of Wild Cat creek, one and one-half miles west of Greentown. A
large, well-built pumping plant was constructed and a town plat was laid off
adjoining, and quite a number of neat homes were built for their employes. Pipe
lines from the various parts of their gas field converged to this plant.
Recently, because of the failing- pressure in the gas field, pumps have been put
in the wells and the wells are now sooner exhausted by the pumping process.

   Now, after twenty-two years' use, the natural gas supply is largely
exhausted. The reckless waste of the early years, the wholesale use of it in the
factories and shipping it away in many pipe lines have done a perfect work and
the people of Howard county are now almost deprived of the best fuel for
domestic use Nature ever furnished.

   The first factory to locate at Kokomo because of the finding of natural gas
was the Kokomo Window Glass Company, Richard Heagany, president. This company
was subsidized by the donation of a site at the northeast intersectoin [sic] of
North street and the L. E. & W. Railroad, and a cash bonus paid by individual
subscription. They used natural gas in the making of the glass and did a good
business for a few years, when a fire completely destroyed the buildings. The
company did not rebuild but removed to Hartford City and established a window
glass factory at that point.

   Those who had contributed to the cash bonus for locating the factory at
Kokomo were very much disappointed at this action and discussed the advisability
of taking legal steps to compel the return of the money thus paid out, as the
company had acted in bad faith in taking the money and then moving away,
presumably to get another cash bonus. The plant was built in 1887.

PAPER MILLS.

   Another plant located and built in 1887 was the Kokomo Straw-board plant.
This plant was built by Seiberling & Williams, on a ten-acre tract of land on
the New London gravel road about one mile southwest of the city.

   This plant was subsidized by two thousand dollars by the Kokomo Improvement
Company and was expended in the purchase of the ten acres of land from A. F.
Armstrong. The plant consisted of several large brick buildings with all the
necessary machinery for converting straw into paper board and apparently was a
very permanent improvement.

   This factory used natural gas for fuel and for several years did a good
business and used a vast quantity of straw, making a market for all of the straw
for many miles around. For several years Mr. Thomas Bauer was a familiar figure
among the farmers of the county in buying their straw. The old Cromwell millrace
was utilized in filtering the water with the waste from the straw-board mill.

   Soon the farmers along Wild Cat below the mill began to complain of stream
pollution, asserting that the poisonous chemicals used in bleaching the straw
and board and escaping in the refuse from the mill poisoned the waters of Wild
Cat, rendering the water unfit and dangerous for stock to drink, and that the
refuse killed the fish in the stream. Finally suit was brought to prevent the
allowing of the refuse to go into the stream. Damage suits were threatened. This
uprising extended almost to the west limits of the county. Meanwhile the
American Strawboard Company had been formed for taking over into one great
corporation all the strawboard plants, and the Kokomo plant had thus been
absorbed. Because of this opposition the Kokomo plant was closed and has since
remained closed, except for a short time it was operated as a boxboard factory.
It is not at all likely that the factory will ever again be operated. The silent
walls only remain of this once active industry.

   In the succeeding year two other paper mills were located south of the
strawboard mill, on Kokomo creek. The first to locate was the woodpulp mill,
with G. P. Wood as president. This mill converts quaking asp, second growth
cottonwood and buckeye timber into wood pulp for the manufacture of paper. For
several years after the location of this factory large quantities of buckeye and
cottonwood timbers were purchased of the farmers of the county.

   Very little quaking asp timber is grown in the county. The spruce timber used
in the mill was shipped from northern Michigan, two large shiploads or cargoes
being used each year.

   The Newman Paper Company building was built adjoining the woodpulp mill and
after a short time Mr. Newman sold out to Wood & Miller and the combined factory
became known as the. Kokomo Paper Company and the Kokomo Woodpulp Company, with
I. N. Miller, president; G. P. Wood, secretary: and C. L. Wood, treasurer. The
two plants, including buildings and grounds occupied by the business, covers
three acres. They manufacture wood fibre, board, barrel and box layers and have
a market all over the country.

   In the year 1888 William C. Smith, from Rockford, Illinois, came to Kokomo
seeking a location for a bit factory in the gas belt. He was then engaged in
operating a factory of this kind at Rock-ford. Upon arriving at Kokomo he fell
in with J. R. Hall, Wick Russell and Garah Markland, innocent-appearing men but
hustlers, who, providing a good conveyance, took him out past and beyond the
extensive farm lands of A. F. Armstrong, on the south side, through Markland and
Russell's farm lanes beyond Pete's branch and almost to the bluffs of Kokomo
creek, so far out that all that was visible of Kokomo was the top of the court
house tower, and here in a beautiful woods pasture these gentlemen assured Mr.
Smith would be an ideal location for a bit factory. It was at a point where the
three farms owned by these gentlemen touched each other. Mr. Hall told Mr. Smith
that if he would locate on his side he would donate six acres, including a part
of a clover field; Messrs. Russell and Markland said they would each give three
acres more, and actually talked this shrewd business man into locating there. Be
it remembered that this location was away out in the country and in the interior
of three farms, more than a quarter of a mile from any street or highway. When
the writer of this expostulated with Hall, while surveying the site, and asked
him how he could do such an act, he replied: "I intend to make this one of the
most beautiful parts of Kokomo."

THE BIT WORKS.

   The Rockford Bit Works was built that same year and commenced a prosperous
career that has continued to the present. The plant is a large, permanent brick
structure. W. C. Smith was president for many years, and Millard F. Brand was
superintendent till 1894, and George J. Costello succeeded him.

   In 1892 Henry C. Davis and his son, Henry C., Jr., bought an interest in the
factory. In 1893 they and H. A. Bruner bought in all outstanding stock. They
manufacture augurs, augur bits and carpenter chisels. The present floor space is
about 25,000 square feet. In 1892 the number, of men employed was from thirty to
forty. In 1908 the number is one hundred and fifty to one hundred and sixty, and
the pay-roll is eighty thousand to one hundred thousand dollars per year. The
cpital [sic] stock is seventy-five thousand dollars. The officers are: H. C.
Davis, president; H. A. Bruner, vice-president; H. C. Davis, Jr., treasurer;
George L. Davis, secretary; George J. Costello, superintendent.

INDIANA TUMBLER AND GOBLET COMPANY.

   The Indiana Tumbler and Goblet Company came to Kokomo from Greentown in 1900
and became known as the Kokomo Glass Manufacturing Company, after having burned
out at Greentown. This plant was organized at Greentown in 1894 by D. C.
Jenkins, who had many years' experience in the glass manufacturing business, and
knows the business from all sides. The Kokomo Glass Manufacturing Company's
plant was burned out in June, 1905. The plant was not rebuilt at once, as the
company debated the rebuilding proposition at great length. Many of the skilled
operatives moved away to other towns having similar factories. At last, by the
citizens of Kokomo offering them a liberal bonus, they resolved to rebuild under
a reorganization known as the D. C. Jenkins Glass Company. They accordingly
rebuilt in 1906.

   The factory employs one hundred and fifty men and has a -monthly pay-roll of
eight thousand dollars.

   The output is a full line of glass table ware, milk bottles, fish globes and
a general line of machine-made goods. They have two to three men on the road
selling to jobbers. Seventy-five per cent. of their output is sold in carload
lots. The officers are: D. C. Jenkins, president; Addison Jenkins, secretary and
treasurer.

   The Kokomo Wood Enameling Company was organized and the building erected
about the year 1890. Thomas Bauer, the hustling straw buyer of the Kokomo
Strawboard Company, was the leading spirit in this enterprise. This industry was
located on the southernmost of the factory sites platted in Hamlin's Highland
addition. Its output was the various kinds of enameled wooden ware made from
hardwood lumber, as knobs, handles, etc. It was claimed by the managers of this
concern that they used five hundred thousand feet of hardwood lumber annually.
They bought great numbers of beech and sugar tree logs and thus made a
considerable market for a class of timber that had not heretofore sold for
lumber. While the plant was operated as an enameling industry, the kilns were
visited with two or three disastrous fires. It was capitalized at fifty thousand
dollars and employed one hundred men.

   With the exhaustion of hardwood lumber it was changed to the Kokomo Nail and
Brad Company.

KOKOMO RUBBER COMPANY.

   The Kokomo Rubber Company was organized and incorporated in 1895 and put up
the first building forty by one hundred feet, two stories and basement, and
began the manufacture of bicycle tires January 1, 1896. Each year afterward an
equal floor space was added for seven years. Now the floor space is one hundred
thousand square feet and employs two hundred and twenty-five men. It is
incorporated for two hundred thousand dollars. The pay-roll is one hundred
thousand dollars annually. D. C. Spraker is president and manager, Milton Krouse
is vice-president, George W. Loudon is secretary, D. L. Spraker is treasurer.
The manufactures are bicycle tires, automobile tires and a specialty is made of
solid vehicle tires for buggies. The product is known as Kokomo tires the world
over. Shipments are made not only to all parts of the United States, but to
foreign countries as well. This plant is located on the Lake Erie & Western
railroad, just south of Markland avenue and fronts on Main street.

   The Great Western Pottery Company was established in 1893 on West Morgan
street by the present owners, the two Conrad brothers and Coxon, who is
superintendent. The original -size was four kilns. It now operates ten places.
The buildings cover ninety thousand square feet of floor surface. When the
factory was first built it was the only one west of Pittsburg. Nine years ago
this company secured the same kind of a factory at Tiffin, Ohio, which has seven
kilns, and has practically the same output.

   The Kokomo plant employs one hundred and fifty men, ninety per cent, of whom
are skilled workmen. The pay-roll is about ten thousand dollars per month. Their
output is sanitary pottery ware and their shipments are in carload lots.

   The Globe Stove and Range Works was organized in 1898. The plant is located
on the P., C. & St. L. railroad and their grounds extend from the railroad to
Market street and south from Broadway. The company began in a modest way, but
have continuously grown and expanded until the plant now consists of six large
and substantial fireproof brick buildings. The buildings are all practically
new, steam heated, electrically lighted and well ventilated. The growth of this
industry has been constant and is a credit to the management and the city and
county as well.

TOMATO GROWING.

   Twenty years ago the Charles' Brothers came to Kokomo preaching the gospel of
tomato growing. Mr. A. A. Charles was especially enthusiastic in telling Howard
county farmers what possibilities were in store for them in growing tomatoes on
their fertile acres and recounted what had been done in Jersey and incidentally
stated that he stood ready to help them by starting a canning factory.

   The promoters of the Brookside addition proffered these gentlemen a site for
a factory and as a further encouragement made a donation of some choice lots. A
considerable number of farmers agreed to grow acres of tomatoes at so much per
ton, where they had heretofore been content with a single plant, and the canning
industry had a beginning in Howard county. During these twenty years it has been
a profitable business both for the grower and the packer. The Charles Bros.
operated the Brookside Canning Factory for several years with eminent success,
canning sweet corn and peas as well as tomatoes.

CANNING FACTORIES.

   W. A. Bowlin and others operated a canning factory on the New London pike at
the north end of Courtland avenue for several years, canning peas, corn and
tomatoes. John Cennebeck and others started a third plant near the strawboard
mill, which later passed into the possession of parties who have organized the
Kokomo Canning Company and has been enlarged and improved until it is one of the
best plants in the State.

   The Kokomo Canning Company was incorporated in 1904, having been started by
Josiah Kelly, who operated it until his death two years later. Upon the death of
Mr. Kelly W. A. Bowlin took charge of the property for a season and subsequently
it was operated under the trusteeship of the Kokomo National Bank until the
present company was formed in February, 1904, with a capital stock of
twenty-five thousand dollars, the members of which were: T. C. McReynolds. L. J.
Kirkpatrick, W. W. Barnes, J. W. Barnes., J. W. Learner, E. L. Danner, F. C.
Falk and C. W. McReynolds. The plant was then located at the corner of Water
street and Courtland avenue. In March, 1906, the company doubled its capital
stock and bought out Grafton Johnson, owner of the Brookside and Howard County
canning factories, the Kelly plant for the most part being removed to the
grounds of the Howard County plant, which had in the start been the property of
John Gennebeck. In the end Mr. Gennebeck had ceased the active ownership of this
industry and G. W. Landon, W. F. Ruddell and Grafton Johnson took it in charge.
It was during this period that the Howard County and the old Charles, or
Brookside. canning industries were consolidated. Grafton Johnson operated the
two consolidated properties, which he soon acquired, for some time, when the
three plants were consolidated, as stated, in 1906. The grounds include six and
one-half acres, about three acres of which is covered with buildings. The plant
represents an investment of one hundred thousand dollars, and has never paid
less than ten per cent., and sometimes double, on the capital stock. The active
manager, who began the operation under combined discouragements, is C. W.
McReynolds, recently elected president of the State Canners' Association.

   It has facilities for packing a hundred thousand cans of vegetables in a day
without touching the ingredients with the hands. All is done by machinery.

   The machinery and equipment are the most improved. The company packed more
than three million cans the present season. The company is capitalized at fifty
thousand dollars and was incorporated in 1904. C. W. McReynolds is secretary and
manager.

   Homer Sailors and W. J. Dixon began a fourth packing plant in 1907 on the L.
E. & W. railroad in the Park View addition. The canning industry in Howard
county has proven to be as good as its most sanguine promoters promised.

   In 1888 the Opalescent Glass Factory was located upon one of the factory
sites platted by Mr. R. E. Patterson in the Hamlin Highland addition. A Mr.
Henry, with a Frenchman skilled in the art, secured this site in donation and
proceeded to erect buildings and began the manufacture of this glass. After a
short time he sold out to local men, who secured the skilled services of Mr.
Francois. This is not a large concern, but is a good business and very
profitable. The capital stock is twenty thousand dollars and employs twenty men
and has a monthly pay-roll of eight hundred dollars.

AUTOMOBILES.

   Of the various manufacturing industries that have located in Kokomo probably
none have obtained so wide celebrity as the automobiles. Kokomo is widely known
as the Automobile City. This fame has resulted from the two automobile factories
located here.

   The first was located here ten years ago, in 1898, just south of the rubber
works. Like the rubber works, it had a modest beginning, but grew rapidly and is
now a leading industry. It is said to be the oldest automobile factory in the
United States. It is also said that Mr. Edwood Haynes is the pioneer automobile
inventor of this country. In the beginning the Apperson Bros. were members of
this automobile firm and it was known as the Haynes-Apperson Company. Somewhat
later the Appersons withdrew and began the manufacture of automobiles
independently. The Haynes cars have been entered in many races in competition
with machines made in the best factories of this and foreign countries and have
always given a good account of themselves, especially along endurance lines.

   The Apperson Automobile Company is located on South Main street on the south
side of Wildcat, where the Riverside Machine Works were located. The Apperson
Bros. were the proprietors of this machine shop and when they decided to embark
in the automobile business independently they converted the works into an
automobile industry and erected a large three-story brick building and began the
manufacture of automobiles on a large scale. Their machines are noted for power
and speed. Their business is increasing rapidly and steps have been taken
recently to greatly enlarge the factory.

PITTSBURG PLATE GLASS COMPANY.

   Probably the most important of Kokomo's industrial concerns has been the
Pittsburg Plate Glass Company plant because of its size, the long time it has
been here and the amount of business done. This company was organized in 1888
and located on the east side of the P., C. & St. L. railroad and south of Vaile
avenue. avenue. [sic]

   The founders and promoters of this enterprise were individual capitalists, of
whom Monroe Seiberling was chief. Conger and others helped, but Seiberling came
here and made this city his home for years and did much in various ways for the
material uplift of the city. He also associated some of the business men of this
city with the company in building this plant. It has at all times been a large
employer of labor, employing about five hundred and fifty men, and having a
monthly pay-roll of thirty thousand dollars. This factory was an early and heavy
user of natural gas and had its own natural gas plant, pipe lines and wells,
reaching far out into the gas territory.

   Several years after the founding of this company the Pittsburg Plate Glass
Company, a corporation formed for the purpose of combining all plate glass
companies under one management, bought the stock of this company and made it a
part of the Pittsburg Plate Glass system. Kokomo has been fortunate in that the
plant has been operated almost continuously since its absorption in this system.
The plant is now being rebuilt and otherwise improved, bringing it up to date
and giving assurance to Kokomo that it will still continue to be a live plant
and furnish employment for the men of the plate glass district.

MAKING WOVEN WIRE.

   About fifteen years since some young men came to Kokomo from Ridgeville
looking for a good business location for the manufacture and sale of the Whitney
woven wire fence machine and of the wire for weaving the fence in place. They
also planned to weave the fence in their factory and sell it in rolls to fence
builders. They located their factory at North and Union streets and soon were
doing a fine business in the sale of machines and in building and selling
different styles of fence, including many beautiful designs of ornamental fence.

   A few years since a number of the business men and manufacturers of the city
decided that it would be a profitable and wise thing to greatly enlarge this
business by building a plant to make the wire used in the fence business and to
greatly enlarge the fence building department, and thus the Kokomo Steel and
Wire Company was formed. The stock is very largely held by Kokomo and former
Kokomo citizens. It is an independent company and is handicapped by being
compelled to buy billets from the steel trust. The company has two plants, the
fence plant on North street and the mill proper on West Markland avenue. They
manufacture plain and galvanized fencing wire, wire rods, barbed wire, market
wire, wire nails, staples, wire fencing, etc. They ship their goods to all parts
of the United States, Canada and Mexico. Both plants give employment to a large
number of men. A. A. Charles is president; A. V. Conradt, vice-president; George
W. Charles, treasurer, and J. E. Fredrick, secretary.

   J. B. Michener established the Star Machine Works on North Main street in
1874 and did a general repair business for various kinds of machinery, employing
twelve men and doing a business of twenty-five thousand dollars per annum. After
his death the business and plant passed into the control of the Standard Motor
Company. This company continued the repair business and manufactured small
gasoline engines and saw swedges. In 1904 the K., M. & W. Traction Company
purchased the plant for a repair shop and car barns. In 1906 the Superior
Machine Tool Company occupied the building used for the repair of machinery,
being a building thirty by three hundred feet. The company is engaged in the
manufacture of upright drills. They are in position to do all kinds of repair
work and the building of special machinery.

   Ford & Donnelly, at the corner of North and Buckeye streets, have been
operating a machine and repair shop for many years. These machine and repair
shops are very useful industries to the people of Howard county.

   The Knerr Board and Paper Company's plant is located north of North street on
the L. E. & W. Railroad, and is one of two like mills owned and operated by
Cincinnati parties. The manufactures of the company are folding paper box
boards, binders and trunk boards and double board used for bookbinders' and
shipping cases. The plant employs seventy-five hands.

KOKOMO BALE TIE COMPANY.

   The Kokomo Bale Tie Company, formerly known as the Schild Fence Company, is
located on North street between the L. E. & W. and the P., C, C. & St. L.
railroads and manufactures the Schild fence, bale ties for baling hay and straw
and farm gates, and is prepared to furnish standard makes of telephone and
telegraph wires and wires for cement posts. The company handles plain and
galvanized fence wire, barbed wire, nails and staples and high carbon coil
spring wire. Fifteen men are employed.

   Of the many industries not already mentioned and contributing to the
industrial life and growth of Kokomo and to the prosperity of Howard county may
be mentioned the Columbia Pottery and Manufacturing Company, north of Morgan
street, on the L. E. & W. Railroad; the Kokomo Brass Works, on North Smith
street, the Kokomo Box Company, located on North Smith street, occupying the
Petroleum Hoop Company's former plant: the Kokomo Hoop and Lumber Company, at
west end of Mulberry street; the National Mitten Works, East High street; the
Ulrich Manufacturing Company, Wall street: the Colonial Brick Company, East High
street; the Kokomo Cash Lumber Company, West Elm, adjoining the L. E. & W
Railroad; the Pinnell-Stroup Lumber Company, Buckeye street between Elm and
Broadway streets.

   It is claimed that the manufacture of the Hoosier Standard grain measures is
the oldest manufacturing business of the county. This was commenced at Greentown
in 1853 by Joseph M. Loop and removed to Kokomo in 1877 and continued by John N.
Loop, the son.

FLORICULTURE.

   In recent years there has sprung up a new industry in our midst. In 1891 W.
W. Coles came to Kokomo from the vicinity of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and
engaged in floriculture on East Jefferson street in a modest way. His business
met a popular demand and grew rapidly until now he has seventy thousand square
feet under glass, all fragrant with blooms of all kinds. Mr. Coles does a large
and profitable business. Mr. Coles is an active competitor at the state fairs
for premiums in his department and wins a large share of the first premiums.
Coles, the rose man of Kokomo, is giving the city a good name abroad. His place
is known as the Maple Hill Rose Farm. Since Mr. Coles introduced the business
into this community three other greenhouse plants have sprung up. Fred Kelly, on
East Sycamore street; Tom L. Knipe, on East Mark-land avenue, and W. A. Bitler,
South Buckeye street.

   That this business is doing a good work among the people of the city and
surrounding country is evidenced by the many homes that are rendered beautiful
and attractive throughout the growing season by the many cultivated blooming
plants surrounding the home and in the winter season by indoor blooming plants.

THE TRACTION COMPANY.

   The Kokomo, Marion & Western Traction Company is the successor of the Kokomo
Railway and Light Company and was organized in 1902 and besides furnishing
interurban traffic operates the city street car system, lights the streets of
Kokomo and provides electric lights for the homes of her citizens. The street
car track mileage of Kokomo is ten miles and six street cars are run upon these
lines for the regular service. There are fifty miles of electric light wires in
the city and fourteen hundred consumers of electricity for light and power,
where five years ago there were but three hundred and fifty. The power house is
a large brick structure along the L. E. & W. Railroad, rendering it easily
accessible with fuel. The whole system, including the interurban service, uses
one hundred and ten men.

   The artificial gas plant was constructed for a city of four thousand people
and is wholly inadequate for the present city of Kokomo.

   The city is amply provided with a water works system taking water from a
series of deep wells in a seemingly inexhaustible supply of good water.

   Kokomo and Howard county possess more of the material advantages of life and
fewer of its disadvantages than almost any other like community. As has already
been noted, its lands and improvements are of the very best; the city of Kokomo
has a very large number of very busy factories of the very best kinds, affording
steady employment to thousands of workmen. While the greater number of her
factories were built for the consumption of natural gas for fuel when the gas
began to fail they were changed to burn coal and practically all are now fitted
for burning coal.

   Some eighteen years ago a belt railroad was built from the P., C. & St. L.
Railroad around the south side of the city, reaching nearly all of the factories
on the south side and providing them with convenient railroad facilities. The
other factories of the city have been provided with railroad switches, spurs and
side tracks until nearly all Kokomo factories are reached by railroad cars and
can have coal direct from the cars. Rates have been made at the coal mines and
with the railroads until the factories are able to have cheap fuel.

   The facilities for shipping coal to the factories here are good now, but
promise to be better in the near future. The city in a little more than twenty
years has quadrupled in population. All that country south of Wild Cat , which
was farm land when the bit factory was located, is now improved city properties,
with paved streets, city water and city lights and the bit factory itself, which
was then far out in the country, is now well within the city. The future is
bright with promise.

   Howard county and Kokomo in their prosperous career have experienced very few
disappointments. Two or three will here be referrd [sic] to.

TROUBLE OVER RAILROAD BONDS.

   A matter over which there seems to have been considerable dissatisfaction at
the time, grew out of the building of the Indianapolis & Peru Railroad. It
appears that the company lacked fifty thousand dollars of having money enough to
finish the road to Peru and were unable to sell their bonds. The company
therefore decided to ask the counties through which the road was being built to
aid by loaning the credit of the counties, that is. while the railroad bonds
could not be sold, the bonds of the counties could be sold. The company
therefore proposed that if the counties would issue bonds and loan the money
thus raised the company would reimburse the counties as soon as possible for the
loan. In accordance with this plan, on the 2Tst of August, 1851, C. D. Murray
and William T. Holman, representing- the company, came before the commissioners
and asked them, for the county, to issue bonds to the amount of ten thousand
dollars and take railroad stock to that amount on condition that the other
counties raise the balance. The board took the matter under consideration until
the next day, when they agreed to do so, provided the county could be
indemnified against loss by any failure of the company.

   To meet this condition the following persons entered into a written
obligation to indemnify the county against loss in the ratio of the respective
amounts subscribed by each, on condition that if they had to pay the losses the
stock should be theirs:

   William J. Holman, $4,000; C. Richmond, $500; John Bohan, $1,000; Austin
North, $500; William Brown, $500; George Deffenbaugh, $500: John Dale, $500; J.
D. Sharp, $1,000; F. S. Price, $1,000; J. M. Skein, $500.

   Whereupon the board ordered the auditor to subscribe for four hundred shares
of stock at twenty-five dollars each, and that county bonds bearing ten per
cent, interest and to run for ten years be issued to the amount of ten thousand
dollars. The bonds were subsequently issued and were signed by Tence Lindley,
Richard Nixon and John Knight. Certificates of stock were issued on delivery of
the bonds.

   At the December term, 1853, C. D. Murray, agent of the Peru & Indianapolis
Railroad Company, came before the board and represented that the Peru &
Indianapolis Railroad and the Indianapolis & Madison Railroad companies had
consolidated their interests, that this consolidation was a sufficient guarantee
for the payment of the bonds and interests clue the county and therefore moved
that the certificates of stock be canceled and the guarantors be released. The
commissioners made an order in accordance with the motion; the certificates were
surrendered as collateral and the guarantors were released as securities.

   The company for a time continued to pay the interest and partial payments on
the principal. But the road was being operated in a new and sparsely settled
region, which at best could furnish but a limited amount of business. Their
business was not sufficient to pay a large operating expense and to pay ten per
cent, interest on a large debt besides. The company therefore was forced into
bankruptcy and the road was sold. The failure of the railroad company caused the
county to lose the balance unpaid of the ten thousand dollars originally
advanced to the company, which was about six thousand dollars, principal and
interest. There was considerable criticism of the board for releasing the
guarantors.

   This criticism by those pioneers throws a strong side light upon them. They
have appeared heretofore as men of great generosity and broad sympathy for each
other, that the privations of the new country had developed a spirit of broad
friendship and unselfishness that rendered them incapable of taking advantage of
another's generosity. It has been repeatedly asserted that they freely left
their own work to help another without any thought of pay or help in return; but
here we have an instance of certain public-spirited citizens of the community,
pledging large amounts for an enterprise that will help the entire community all
alike, and which will be worth many times its cost, being held responsible for
this debt by their fellow citizens and the commissioners, who released them
criticized for doing so.

   It manifestly would have been unfair to have held these few men responsible,
who were no more benefitted than others, for this debt when it was of vast
general benefit to the whole county.

   This instead of being reckoned a misfortune to the county, was probably the
best investment ever made. It was the pioneer railroad and gave the county an
early direct line to the business center of the state.

THE DOXEY FACTORY.

   Another matter over which there was much dissatisfaction was the Doxey
factory matter. In the spring of 1874 C. T. Doxey, of Anderson, came before the
city council and represented that he was looking for a location for a large
factory and that if Kokomo wanted it she could have it by offering proper
inducement. After returning home he sent the following letter which more fully
explains his scheme:

                                 "Anderson, Indiana. 
"To the Mayor and Honorable Council of the City of Kokomo, Indiana:

   "Gentlemen—Enclosed please find a plan of heading, stave and bent factory,
which I have now arranged to put up at this place. The building will be brick,
iron roof. Will be the largest and best arranged of any in the state and perhaps
the best in the United States. Propose to make circled heading from beech and
red oak; lead keg staves and heading and oil barrel staves and heading. The
above machinery will all be placed on first floor. The second story propose to
use for bent work. My engine is from eighty to one hundred horse power: will use
two large boilers. The machinery to be all new or good as new. The factory will
employ from forty to eighty hands besides those who may be engaged in cutting
and hauling timber. It makes a market for your elm, red oak and beech timber;
and as have built three factories of this kind and have had four years'
experience, and have had perhaps the largest trade in cooper business of any one
in the state, think it would be safe in saying, 'It will be a success.'

   "Have a good location here and in locating at your city will be a loss in
many ways. Would respectfully make the following proposition: If your city will
donate five thousand dollars, one-half to be paid when building is completed and
one-half when it is in operation, will locate at Kokomo. It may require from
forty to sixty thousand dollars to carry on the business. Will bind myself to
have said factory in operation by the 1st of September this year. Would come at
once. What action on the above proposition you choose to take, please do so
tonight, as I have part of the machinery purchased and want to commence the
building at once. Very respectfully yours.
                                        C. T. Doxley."

   This was read to the council May 15, 1874, and a committee was appointed to
look after the matter. It is supposed to have acted favorably on the
proposition, as we find this record, September 4, 1874:

COMMITTEE'S REPORT ON DOXEY FACTORY.

   "Gentlemen—Your committee which was appointed to examine the stave and
heading factory of C. T. Doxey would respectfully report that said factory is
now in operation according to the terms of Mr. Doxey's contract. Signed by
committee.

   "Mr. Davis moved the report be concurred in and that an order for five
thousand dollars be drawn in favor of C. T. Doxey.

   "This motion prevailed with one dissenting vote."

   There was not a little opposition to making this donation by some of the most
substantial citizens, who asserted that it was illegal and bad policy to hire
factories to locate here with money from the city treasury. The other party
contended that property would be benefited by locating factories here and that
the only real fair way to subsidize them was by taxation. As there was an
overwhelming sentiment for locating factories at Kokomo, and thus to increase
industrial activity, the donation prevailed and Doxey's factory got the five
thousand dollars.

   The factory operated for a few years and then from some cause stopped. The
machinery was moved away and for several years the silent buildings bore mute
testimony to where Doxey's factory had been. The proprietors of Kirkpatrick &
Scott's addition to Kokomo had made a liberal land donation to the factory
expecting the operation of the factory would cause that part of Kokomo to build
up. The closing of the factory stopped business in that part of town and there
was no more market for lots. The closing of this factory was the sorest
disappointment Kokomo has experienced.

   In the abundant prosperity of the past twenty years and in the location of
many much more important factories than Doxey's ever was she had well-nigh
forgotten this experience. The historian now consigns it to a place with the
window glass company and the straw-board company and is glad that these are all.



Additional Comments:
From:

HISTORY OF HOWARD COUNTY INDIANA
BY
JACKSON MORROW, B. A.
ILLUSTRATED
VOL. I
B. F. BOWEN & COMPANY
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

(circa 1909)

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