USA > Indiana > Lake County > A standard history of Lake County, Indiana, and the Calumet region, Volume I > Part 28
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"The next step was the selection of a site to build a slaughter house. The location must be on some lake or river in order to secure the large amount of ice necessary to operate the coolers and cars.
"After some looking around in the vicinity of the stock yards at Chicago, a site was selected on the west bank of the Calumet River and just west of the Michigan Central railroad bridge, about three miles west of the State Line. Strong opposition arose as the neighboring property owners found out that a slaughter house was to be built there, and the firm of J. P. Smith & Company, ice men, made such strenuous objections that the matter was reconsidered. H. E. Sargeant, superin- tendent of the Michigan Central, from whom a great many favors were desired, was the owner of a half interest in the firm of J. P. Smith & Company.
STATE LINE SLAUGHTER HOUSE FOUNDED
"One bright day in the fall of 1868 four men crossed the Michigan Central bridge and going east from the Smith ice houses were seen trying to approach the water line of the Grand Calumet River. After having walked about a mile east they held a conference on a slightly raised bit of land near the river bank. It was afterwards ascertained that Mr. Hammond thought they had found just the spot and would secure a piece of land there upon which to build the ice houses and slaughter houses. The others favored going still further east. At that time the land close to the river was covered with a dense growth of wild rice and marsh grass while the ridges back were covered with an almost impene- trable growth of shrub oak.
"After laboriously wending their way along the meandering line
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of the Grand Calumet River for about an hour they came to a place where the solid earth formed a bank to the stream, while owing to the forma- tion of a slough along the opposite bank of the river, the stream at this point seemed much wider, which was a very valuable consideration with a view of getting a crop of ice. Marcus M. Towle selected this spot for the site of their plant and was seconded in his choice by the Plum- ers. Mr. Hammond at first dissented and urged the selection of the former site farther west. He afterwards endorsed this selection and it became the site upon which the plant was built, from which fresh beef was shipped in Davis refrigerator cars and refrigerator boats to almost all parts of the world. The piece of land selected proved to be bounded by the State Line of Indiana and Illinois on the west; the Grand Calu- met River on the north ; the Michigan Central railroad on the south and west line of Hohman street on the east. The building material sent down by the car load from Chicago was carded to State Line, Indiana, and all billing was done to and from Gibson, then a station of long standing on the Michigan Central three miles further east, which place was also the nearest telegraph office and postoffice.
"Before the building material arrived at the State Line for building the ice house, slaughter house and boarding house a contract had been entered into by and between Ernest Hohman and Caroline Hohman, his wife, and Hammond, Plumer & Company, for the purchase of forty acres of land at one hundred dollars per acre, which was the land in Indiana lying south of the river north of the Michigan Central R. R. right-of-way and west of Hohman Street. The Michigan Central at that time was the only railroad running to the premises.
THE HOHMAN BOARDING HOUSE
"The men engaged in putting up the building were crowded into the small houses of the few resident farmers, the greater number of them being accommodated by the Hohman family, who lived in a log house on the north side of the river near the site of the present Hohman homestead.
"The Hohman family consisted of Ernest W. Hohman, Caroline (his wife) and Ottelia, Charles, Lewis, Agnes, Emma and Lena, children. Ottelia, the eldest, was at that time thirteen years old, Charles eleven, Lewis nine, Agnes seven, Emma five and Lena three.
START OF HAMMOND
"About the middle of September, 1868, three cars loaded with lum- ber were stopped on the Michigan Central track where Hohman Street
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crossing now exists; the train was held while the lumber was thrown off alongside the track. (This was the starting of what was destined to become the City of Hammond.) Teams and men were engaged as fast as they applied for work, carpenters were brought from Chicago and Detroit. All houses within miles were pressed into service as boarding houses, and beside the large family Mrs. Hohman had to care for she made room for more than a dozen boarders engaged in building the slaughter house."
MARCUS M. TOWLE
Among the boarders at the Hohman House was Marcus M. Towle, then a vigorous young man of twenty-seven, who had for several years been a butcher in Detroit, where he had met Mr. Hammond who was in the same line of business. Mr. Towle was born in New Hampshire, but learned his trade and business in Massachusetts. When he located in Detroit the Boston market was being supplied with fresh beef on the hoof, the cattle being sent in stock-cars from the Middle West. Ile quickly saw that on the score both of economy and healthful meat, it would be an advantage to slaughter the cattle when they were in prime condition and send the meat on to the eastern markets, if it could be preserved en route. In his small slaughter house at Detroit he would kill his cattle brought in from Chicago, dress them and. after sprinkling the carcasses with cracked ice, would ship a load to Boston.
Mr. Hammond, also proprietor of a small meat market, became inter- ested in the experiment, suggested an enlargement of the enterprise by the addition of more capital; hence the partnership with Banker Ives. and the formation of the firm Hammond, Plumer & Company. The other steps leading to the founding of the State Line Slaughter House have been described.
FIRST SHIPMENT OF REFRIGERATOR BEEF
After the slaughter house was ready, ice was purchased from J. P. Smith & Company to use in the coolers and ears during the fall of 1868, and in October the first carload of fresh beef shipped in the Davis refrigerator cars from State Line, or Gibson, was sent to Boston. That was the commencement in the trade in refrigerated beef and other meats which is now international and cosmopolitan in its scope and fame. At the time that the historical event occurred, carpenters were building a boarding house, which was kept by Mrs. M. M. Towle until their new residence was completed in 1873. Others (including C. N. Towle) after-
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ward became head of the boarding house, which was esteemed a very honorable position.
A postoffice was established at this point, with Mr. Towle, as resident member of the firm, postmaster. The active work for Uncle Sam, how- ever, is said to have been done by Miss Annie Dow, who had a half inter- est in the Towle store. As there happened to be a State Line, Illinois, the business of the two postoffices became considerably mixed, and Mr. Towle induced the Washington authorities to change the name of the Indiana postoffice to Hammond, in honor of his friend and business associate. That was in 1873, and the Towle store afterward developed into one of the most profitable accessories of the meat business.
MR. TOWLE AND MR. HAMMOND DIFFER
During the first fifteen years of the business there seemed to be a difference of opinion between Mr. Hammond and Mr. Towle as to the permanency of the slaughter house. From the first Mr. Towle planted himself there with wife and family and insisted that it was both his business and his domestic home, and that he intended to work for them both to the best of his abilities. The locality was by no means attractive, and during the earlier years of the enterprise it was difficult to keep the butchers for slaughtering. As early as 1874 Mr. Towle proposed to Mr. Hammond that the firm buy eighty acres along the river, which had been leased for the grass crop used for cattle feed and ice covering, and plat the tract for building sites, the houses to be erected for the working- men to be sold to them on monthly payments. George M. Plumer fay- ored the plan, but Mr. Hammond opposed it, as it was his belief that the slaughter house would have to be moved further west nearer the cattle center and where transportation was better.
Mr. Plumer died in the fall of 1874, and his interest in the plant was bought in by the other partners for $50,000, which was a pretty fair return for six years investment of $1,000. This gave Mr. Hammond two-fifths of the business, Mr. Ives, two-fifths, and Mr. Towle, one-fifth. And yet M. M. Towle was the real founder of Hammond, as will develop with the unfolding of the story.
MR. TOWLE PLATS AND FOUNDS HAMMOND
In 1875 Mr. Towle bought from A. Goodrich about sixteen acres which he platted as Block 1 and 2, Original Town of Hammond. Thomas Phillips, Leonard Phillips, H. A. Green and M. H. Baum bought lots and built homes on Plumer Avenne. Centennial Hall was built on the
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corner of Plumer Avenue and Hohman Street. Five acres more were purchased by Mr. Towle from Mrs. Hohman and comprised Block 3, Original Town, and was the land upon which Fritz Miller and Henry Huehn put up buildings.
When the Original Town was laid out in 1875, Mr. Towle's sole object was to enable men working at the packing house to secure homes. The handicaps under which he at first worked, and how his perseverance, faith and good sense overcame them, now constitute a chapter of which the public of Hammond cannot speak too highly.
One graphie account of that period says: "Modern packing house methods were unknown at that time, and consequently great piles of bones accumulated from the tank room. Rough sheds were constructed alongside the track, filled with skulls and horns, and throwing off a stench that was nauseating to any person not accustomed to it. This stench was very strong in the direction of the wind.
"The country round about was a vast wilderness composed of ridges and sloughs, all covered with an almost impenetrable growth of scrub oak and tangled underbrush, among which at night the barking of wolves was frequently heard.
"That a flourishing city would ever spring up, surrounded as the place was, was not thought of. An examination of some of the early plats will convince anyone that the promoters were only trying to sup- ply a demand existing at that time. Mr. Towle's plan was to sell a fifty- foot lot for $200, furnish the lumber, and oftentimes the money to build a house, and let the purchasers pay for it by the month, the payments being in a majority of the cases ten dollars per month. This plan was so popular that a great many homes were built, the lumber being pur- chased in Chicago, and shipped out by the car load at eight dollars per car, which at that time was a special rate, the regular rate being sixteen dollars per car. The demand for lumber to build houses with grew so rapidly that Mr. Towle bought a piece of land on the north side of the river, put in two hundred feet of dock, and opened a lumber yard, buy- ing his lumber by the cargo, the vessels being towed fourteen miles up the river from the harbor entrance at South Chicago. A planing mill was built alongside the dock. It was destroyed by fire. Then when rail- road competition was established shipping by water (owing to the long and expensive tow) was abandoned (1888)."
It may be said that Mr. Towle withdrew from the slaughter house when he commenced the platting and the founding of Hammond; later, he took a large part in the founding of East Chicago, and altogether had more to do with the early establishment of the great industries of the Calumet region than any other person. Besides founding the enterprises
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HOHMAN STREET, HAMMOND, IN 1882 AND TODAY
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already named, Mr. Towle established a lumber yard in 1875, and later built a planing mill, both being destroyed by fire. Other early indus- tries which owed their existence, in whole or largely, to him, were two flour mills and distilleries, both burned; the Tuthill Spring Company's works, a vinegar works, the Hammond Buggy Company, the East Chi- cago Steel Works, the Kingsley Foundry, the Chicago Steel Manufactur- ing Company, the Chicago Carriage Works (now occupied by the Sim- plex Appliance Company and destroyed by fire in 1889), the Hammond Corn Syrup Works, three skating rinks (all burned), the Calumet Ter- minal Railroad and the Western Indiana Line. He also laid out Oak Hill Cemetery and put in operation the first electric light plant, which derived its power from the Hammond Mill on the north side of the river.
Mr. Towle was Hammond's first mayor. He organized the First National Bank of Hammond, with which his son of the same name is identified, and at his death in September, 1910, was acknowledged to be one of the country's great men of affairs.
The slaughter house was the only industry in Hammond until 1874, when J. M. Hirsch erected a small albumen factory near the old Hohman Street bridge. That was the predecessor of the Hirsch, Stein & Com- pany's glue and fertilizer plant, at the locality named. which now em- ploys 400 men and distributes about $360,000 annually among them. It is estimated that the works have an output of twenty carloads a day and that about five per cent of the glue used in the United States is made there.
That was the only early industrial plant in Hammond which was not directly promoted by Mr. Towle, who. therefore, was the chief per- sonal force in that wise plan of city-building which aims to diversify the industries of its people, so that too much of their support and pros- perity shall not depend upon a very limited line of manufactures.
THOMAS HAMMOND ENTERS BUSINESS
During the later years of the Hammond slaughter house, the busi- ness was controlled by George H. and Thomas Hammond, brothers. As early as 1873 some of the by-products of the trade commenced to be utilized. A Mr. Loescher first contracted with George H. Hammond & Company for the entrails and stomach linings of the eattle, from which to make sausage casings. bladders and tripe. On account of some busi- ness misunderstandings, which were carried into the courts. their rela- tions were dissolved in 1875, and this industry was taken over by Thomas Hammond, who joined his brother at that time and conducted it as a
.
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regular branch of the business. He was then thirty-two years of age, was a practical buteher and had been a resident of Detroit, like his brother.
A BIG, WARM MAN
Thomas Hammond's venture in the packing business was profitable and his executive and business ability made him assistant superintendent of the company, but, like Mr. Towle, his ambitions and successes extended far into other fields. The basis of his large fortune was laid in real estate investments, made largely in the eastern part of the city, and in financial operations in connection with the Commercial and First Na- tional banks. He also served as mayor of Hammond in 1888, 1890 and 1892, and as president of the Hammond Land and Improvement Com- pany was chiefly instrumental in locating the W. B. Conkey Company's printing and publishing plant at Hammond, an enterprise which gave the city its second decisive impetus. Mr. Hammond's career in Congress during 1893-94 was what was to have been expected of a citizen of his broad and sound abilities, and his death in 1909-a year previous to Mr. Towle's decease-left many sad hearts in the county to grieve over the departure of Hon. Thomas Hammond, otherwise "Honest Tom."
BURNING OF SLAUGHTER HOUSE
The burning of the Hammond slaughter house on the 23d of October, 1901, was a staggering blow to the prosperity of Hammond. The loss was at least $500,000 and it soon became a certainty that the business would not be resumed at "the old stand." An added handicap was the shrinkage of the business of the great Conkey establishment, caused by a strike of its employees: most of the other industries were either small or in their experimental stages, so that the outlook was not cheer- ful. But Hammond weathered its troubles with flying colors, as the city always has a way of doing, although the onee great abattoir closed its doors May 12. 1903, and all the interests of the Hammond Packing Company were transferred to the Chicago Stock Yards.
JAMES N. YOUNG
At the time that Messrs. Hammond, Towle and their associates founded the fresh beef plant at Hammond, James N. Young was the station agent at Gibson; was also the telegraphic operator, and as a side issue bought ducks from the hunters in the Calumet marshes and sent the wild
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game to Boston in the Davis refrigerator cars. This became quite a side issue to the regular beef business, and Mr. Young made enough out of it to put him through a Chicago law school. But Mr. Towle had taken a liking to the young man, snatched him from the law and gave him an interest in some of his real estate deals. Mr. Young again gathered a little capital and commenced to build railways-the Kansas City and Southwestern, the Chicago & Calumet Terminal, etc. He was the main- spring which brought the latter to Hammond, and afterward sold both his own and Mr. Towle's interest to General J. T. Torrence and others, of Chicago.
In 1884 Messrs. Young and Towle induced William and Frank Tut- hill, brothers, to bring their spring works to Hammond, taking a half interest in the business. They also joined General Torrence and George W. Hofman to form the Chicago Steel Manufacturing Company, which operated both steel works and nail mills. The works were afterward leased to the East Chicago Steel Company, with Mr. Towle as president, and the Lakeside Nail Company took over the mills, which were burned in 1904. The entire business was then placed in the hands of a reor- ganized corporation which was known by the old title of Chicago Steel Manufacturing Company.
While never residing in Hammond, Mr. Young had large property interests in the city and was a warm supporter of all local interests.
ROBERTSDALE
Robertsdale, although within the corporate limits of Hammond, was originally a water station on the Fort Wayne road, and as early as the late sixties quite a settlement had grown up at that point. It was named after George M. Roberts, whose family has played an important part in the development of that section. As a railway station it is still known under its old name.
One of the prettiest pleasure resorts in Hammond is known as Rob- ertsdale Park and consists of about four acres of lake beach, shady walks and grass plats. Among the living attractions of the park are pet doves and rabbits and a few wild animals, partially domesticated. Robertsdale Park is a popular place for picnic and bathing parties.
THE W. B. CONKEY PLANT
The large printing and publishing plant of the W. B. Conkey Com- pany was located at Hammond in 1898. The founder and builder of this great book manufactory, the buildings of which cover eight acres and
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are centered in twenty acres of parks and gardens, thus transferred a metropolitan business to a point twenty miles from Chicago for the purpose of avoiding strikes, freight charges incident to operations in a congested city, high rentals and taxes, and other expenses which will readily occur to the intelligent reader. He placed his establishment on the ground, and thus did away with elevator and the other drawbacks accompanying the conduct of an extensive business, perpendicularly instead of horizontally. He controlled his own tracks, and everything and everybody were handled at his very doors, and had the solid ground beneath them. The lives of the employees, though they reached 1,400 or 1,500 in number, were also shorn of some of the worst wear and tear of a business existence by the provision of pleasant rooms for reading, rest and recreation, in addition to an attractive outlook beyond the walls of the factory. The Conkey Company was a pioneer in this laudable desire which is happily spreading among the proprietors of American industries.
It would be impossible to fully describe the Conkey plant, or any other of the great manufactories within the Hammond territory; we all know that it stands in the first class of the modern printing houses of the world, and that it has a cosmopolitan fame for the rapid and superior printing and binding of large editions of books and catalogues. More than a million dollars is invested in the property, and fully a third . of a million is annually transferred from the company's treasury to the pockets of the men and women, boys and girls, who are doing their good part to make Hammond and the Calumet region known to the world.
The establishment of the W. B. Conkey Company greatly accelerated the growth of Hammond, and this industrial achievement was brought about by the liberal action of George E. Rickcords, of Chicago, in con- junction with the efforts of Thomas Hammond, president of the Ham- mond Land & Improvement Company. As a result of this co-operation, Mr. Rickcords donated ten acres of land, and sold seventy acres more at a nominal price to that company, as an inducement to have the plant established at Hammond. This land was subdivided as the Franklin Addition to Hammond.
SIMPLEX RAILWAY APPLIANCE COMPANY
The Simplex Railway Appliance Company has also been expanding its plant on the northern banks of the Grand Calumet since 1898. Its buildings now cover four acres of ground and its yards and dockage, which have a river frontage of 2,800 feet. about thirty-six acres more.
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The works employ from seven hundred to eight hundred men, disburse half a million dollars ammally and represent an investment of $1,000,000. The products of the industry include truck and body bolsters, brake beams, bearings, gears, springs for locomotives and car equipment of all kinds. Another idea of the magnitude of the business may be obtained from the authorized statement that the plant receives annually about fifty-five thousand tons of steel and twenty-five thousand tons of malle- able iron, besides other material, and ships a like amount, involving the handling of 10.000 carloads or more. The works lie between the Indiana
ALONG THE GRAND CALUMET RIVER
Harbor and the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Belt lines, through which, and their own trackage, they have perfect connections with the Michigan Central. Monon, Erie and other trunk lines.
STANDARD STEEL CAR WORKS
The Standard Steel Car Company operates an immense plant in the western part of the city. The yards, mills and factories cover 360 acres, employ 2,500 men, disburse $2,000,000 in wages and salaries, and repre- sent an investment of $4,000,000. The steel carshop is 2,112 feet long, with a capacity of sixty cars a day : the wooden carshop, 1.600 feet long, with a capacity of fifty cars daily. The passenger carshops ocenpy three smaller buildings. The power for the great plant is furnished by a 5,000 horsepower engine. All in all, the Standard Steel Car Works stand for the largest industry within the corporate limits of Hammond.
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ILLINOIS CAR AND EQUIPMENT COMPANY
Engaged in a similar line of manufactures is the Illinois Car & Equipment Company, whose plant covers 24 acres , employs 350 men, pays its employees $150,000 yearly and represents a capital of $100,000.
FITZ HUGH LUTHER COMPANY
The Fitz Hugh Luther Company, quite generally known as the Fitz Hugh Luther Locomotive Works, occupies a site of fourteen acres in the eastern part of Hammond, just north of the Grand Calumet and on the Indiana Harbor and Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Belt lines. Its proprietors are successors to the old firm of Torbert & Peckham. As now operated, the plant employs about two hundred men, who are engaged in the manufacture and rebuilding of locomotives, cars, steam shovels and general railway equipment. The main shop is 300 by 160 feet and the pattern shop about the same size. There are many other smaller build- ings. The appliances include a compressed air plant, which enables the company to use extensively a variety of air tools, and a com- plete electric lighting system. e
NORTHERN INDIANA GAS AND ELECTRIC WORKS
The Northern Indiana Gas & Electric Company supplies gas, electric light and electric power to the entire Calumet region, with the exception of Gary, in fact, with that exception, to the entire territory of Northern Indiana from the Illinois State Line to South Bend. Its property at Hammond ineludes the gas plant on Hohman Street and the Calumet River, with a capacity of 2,500,000 feet daily, and the electric power plant on the Chicago Terminal Transfer Railway near North Hohman Street, with a capacity of 2,500 k. w. Some two hundred employees are identified with the various operations of the Hammond plants, in which 'fully $1,000,000 has been invested. It is stated that throughout the entire Calumet region the company supplies electric power, or gas and electric lighting, to 60 factories, 10,000 homes and 2,000 business houses. The company has large interests at East Chicago, which will be noted in the proper place. It supplies electricity for 7.000 horsepower of motors, and at such rates that the inducements to manufacturers to locate within the territory covered by their operations have been of the most substantial character.
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