USA > Indiana > Lake County > A standard history of Lake County, Indiana, and the Calumet region, Volume I > Part 30
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Besides the Clarke and Roberts estates, there was a third large owner of the land upon which the Whiting industries were planted. Henry Schrage, a young German-American soldier of the Civil war, abandoned railroad service in the late '60s, opened a general store at the settlement which afterward became Whiting, bought real estate with some of the profits of the business, and when the Rockefeller people came was in a
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position to turn over portions of his property to the Standard Oil Company.
FIRST BUILDERS OF THE OIL PLANT
It may be interesting, also, to recall the names of those who were most instrumental in the first construction work of the mammoth oil refinery and accessory manufactories. It was prosecuted under the direct supervision of W. P. Cowan, vice president, with a long list of assistants, such as J. G. Davidson, W. E. Warwick and Louis Graham, engineers; William Curtis, master mechanic, and Charles Halsey, J. N. Gow, Nicholas Seubert, R. Harris, J. P. Freeman, George Klein and Edward Mack, in charge of the mechanical departments, with George P. France as general superintendent. Alexander McClelland, a Chicago engineer, drove a tunnel under Lake Michigan, and constructed the first waterworks connected with the refining processes. And with this first building and bustling and substantial development of a solid indus- try, the original town of Whiting sprung up around these operations in all its mushroom crudeness.
OIL CLOTH AND ASPHALT FACTORIES
Outside the oil industries, the largest manufactories of Whiting are those conducted by the Petrolene Company, turning out oil cloth, and by the Westrumite Company, the product of whose plant is a kind of asphaltic cement, composed of the famous Trinidad asphalt of South America and the invention of Baron L. S. Von Westrum, of Holland.
The Petrolene Company was established in Chicago in 1901, under another name, and engaged in the paint and roofing business. Since 1903 it has been a Whiting industry, expanding all the time, although slowly in comparison with other industries developed by almost un- limited capital.
GARY, YOUNG, BUT QUITE FINISHED
It is a most trite statement that the City of Gary is the creation of the United States Steel Corporation ; all the world knows it-no munic- ipal creation has been more universally exploited-and yet to even the constant visitor, or the actual resident, it is a daily wonder that any- thing so young as Gary should be so metropolitan and finished. You may repeat and re-repeat the common explanation that it is backed
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and has always been pushed along by one of the richest and most power- ful corporations in the world ; and yet you cannot snuff out that inclina- tion to wonder that within eight years these gigantic industries and this solidly and beautifully built city were but plans in the brains of men.
The mighty work was clearly divided between the construction com- pany and the Gary Land Company. As the latter has had in charge the making of the City of Steel, a description of its work will be deferred to the history of the municipality and the various institutions identified with its civic, social and religious life.
The development of the vast industries controlled by the United States Steel Corporation at Gary has been so rapid and involves so many intricate and interwoven details that there are probably not half a dozen persons in the world who have mastered the subject completely -Judge Gary himself. its strong head, and a favored few. Even to attempt it would be to write a book, without venturing beyond the one subject. The best that can be done is to give an idea of magni- tude, and, even as the words are written, conditions may change and some plant may be completed to which has been assigned a part in the great metallic schemes founded and developed by the Steel Cor- poration, which conducts the steel mills at Gary controlled by the cor- poration.
With the late resumption of work at nearly full capacity, the steel mills will probably employ 10,000 men, and other subsidiary industries of the company, as follows: American Sheet and Tin Plate Company, 2,200: Universal Portland Cement Company, 1,500; American Bridge Company, 1,500, and the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway yards better known as the Kirk yards, 2,000. Generally speaking, the statement will hold to the truth that the industries now controlled by the United States Steel Corporation at Gary give employment to 17,000 men and cover a territory seven miles from east to west between Lake Michigan and the Grand Calumet River. The main steel plant of the corporation-the steel mills, so called-occupies a tract of land two miles in length and one mile in width lying along the shore of the lake immediately north of Gary proper, and nearly in the center of the seven-mile strip. At the eastern edge of the steel plant is the harbor, or slip, extending over half a mile in from the shore and affording berths for half a dozen 12,000- ton ore freighters and equipped with a spacious turning basin at its inner terminus. West of the steel mills are the shops and repair yards of the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway. East of the mills and across the slip is located the mammoth coke oven plant of the corporation and the site of the National Tube Works.
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TRANSPORTATION BY LAND AND WATER
Ground was broken for the steel mills on the 1st of June, 1906, and up to the present time the United States Steel Corporation has expended approximately $80,000,000 in their construction and that of the sub- sidiary plants, with harbor improvements. With the facilities pro- vided by water transportation and the railways, to which every part of its industrial territory is connected through the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern System, it is difficult to eoneeive of more thorough means of freight handling than those enjoyed by the Corporation. The Kirk Railway yards, the home of that railway, as well as the Chieago Outer Belt, com- prises a square mile of car shops, engine houses, sidings, coal chutes, water tanks, freight houses and storage tracks.
The harbor is over a mile in length to the outer end of the breakwater and about two hundred and fifty feet in width, with a 750-foot turning basin, arranged to accommodate the big steamers operated by their own power without the assistance of tugs. It is solidly walled in steel-rein- forced concrete and has a mean depth of about thirty feet. The mam- moth mills and eoke ovens of the steel plan front upon the harbor and docks, that are equipped with electric cranes, derricks and automatie shovels for the rapid transferring of the iron ore from the freighters to the doeks. The huge steamers ply continously during the open season between the iron mines of the Massaba Mountain range, Minnesota, and the Gary Harbor.
THE FACE OF NATURE CHANGED
The bold work required to plant the great steel mills where they are is told thus in an official publication of the City of Gary: "In ereeting the mills of the Indiana Steel Company the builders changed the topog- raphy of the Calumet region almost beyond recognition. They took the Grand Calumet River and bodily moved it half a mile south of its aneient bed and gave it a new channel. Then they took the Lake Shore and Baltimore & Ohio Railroad tracks, and played the same trick with them. In other words, a river and more than twenty miles of railroad traek were shifted around to make a suitable site for what is destined to be the greatest steel-making plant in the world. The lake front itself was filled in and a harbor excavated from the lake to the river, where for- merly the wild deer stalked. The site of the steel furnace where 9,000 men are now employed was formerly occupied by a fishing and hunting club, composed of Chicago men who hunted through the swamps and sand dunes along what is now Broadway and fished in the Grand Cal-
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umet River near the site now occupied by the steel hospital and admin- istration building. In those days there was good fishing where the Gary Hotel now stands, and that was only five years ago."
SOME BIG FACTS ABOUT THE STEEL MILLS
Few clearer and at the same time more condensed statements have been made regarding the giant industries in the hands of the United States Steel Corporation than those contained in the following paper written by A. D. Schaffer, secretary of the Gary Commercial Club :
"The ereetion of the gigantic structures intended for the use of the United States Steel Corporation was marvelous. The loss of life attend- ing such work was reduced to the minimum. Buildings arose as if by magie. Some of them have a length of 1,900 feet. The great blast fur- naces are intended to produce raw material to be used in the various mills. Eight blast furnaces were completed. and when the mills have reached their capacity these furnaces will be required to produce 7,000 tons of basic metal each twenty-four hours. Twelve hundred aeres were covered with buildings very rapidly. In order to give each department ample switching facilities, it required 160 miles of railroad track to be laid in the yards.
"The power to generate the electricity that drives the entire insti- tution is produced by thirty-three gas engines of 3,000 horsepower each, working side by side in one building. These engines are driven by what was formerly allowed to go to waste. Think of it! One hundred thou- sand horsepower generated by waste gas, and you have an idea of the economy.
"Ten thousand tons of coal are now being used each day in the By- Product Coke Ovens. The E. J. & E. R. R., or the belt line having its terminal in Gary, is the means by which large quantities of raw material are transported from one department to another, and it handles all the finished product in its out-bound shipment.
"Let us stop and figure; from 128 to 135 trainloads of thirty-five and forty loaded cars every twenty-four hours, or a train every thirteen minutes, and we shall have an idea of the tremendous extent of this industry."
The site of the manufactories operated by the Indiana Steel Com- pany has an area of 1,400 acres, or over two square miles. There are already in operation eight blast furnaces, fifty-six open-hearth furnaces, plate and rail mills, merchant bar mills, billet mills and a large car-axle plant, the last named being the only concern of the kind west of Pitts- burgh. The exclusive use of the open-hearth process in steel making has
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--
U'P BROADWAY TOWARD THE STEEL MILLS
AT THE GARY IRON ORE DOCKS
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resulted in a marked increase in the capacity of the plant as compared with the output of pig iron, making it a rival of the South Chicago and Homestead mills in that regard. It is estimated that eighty million dol- lars, or fully ten million dollars yearly. has been expended in the con- struction of these various manufactories.
The plans of the United States Corporation for the Indiana Steel Works comprise sixteen blast furnaces and nearly a hundred open- hearth furnaces. of which there are in actual operation eight of the for- mer and fifty-six of the latter: so that substantially one-half of the grand scheme has been realized. The ultimate capacity of the works is placed at four million tons of iron ore annually. or the output of two million tons of finished steel and more than one million tons of steel rails.
AMERICAN SHEET AND TIN PLATE PLANT
The plant of the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company is located on a tract of 240 acres, which lies on the lake front 4.000 feet west of the western line of the steel plant proper. and north of the Kirk Railway vards. It is a branch of the Pittsburgh concern controlled by the cor- poration and represents an investment of half a million dollars-and this. although but one of the six contemplated units of the establish- ment has been completed. Ground was first broken in March. 1910. and the first sheet of tin rolled in June of the following year. The build- ings are all of steel on concrete beds. Everything in tin will be turned out of this plant. which consists of a series of structures which resemble long train sheds. all connected by corrugated roofs. The plate and jobbing mills and warehouses comprise ten separate departments. and the sheet mill plant fifteen. There are also a bar storage building a quarter of a mile long. and an office building within a few feet of the western limit of the steel company's plant and immediately north of the offices of the Elgin. Joliet & Eastern Railway. In the autumn of 1910. soon after the completion of the plant. 100 concrete houses and apartments were begun for employees of the company-the first experi- ment in this wholesale construction of homes at reasonable rates for which the corporation-in particular. the Gary Land Company-has be- come so widely known.
UNIVERSAL PORTLAND CEMENT COMPANY
This leads quite naturally to a notice of the operations of the Univer- sal Portland Cement Company. at Buffington. four miles west of the business center of Gary. Its plant covers 100 acres and stretches for a
GENERAL VIEW AT AMBRIDGE, GARY'S WORKINGMEN'S SUBURB
I
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mile along the lake shore and the tracks of the New York Central, Balti- more & Ohio and Pennsylvania. It is one of the most important of the numerous auxiliaries controlled by the United States Steel Corporation, as the plan is one of the most extensive in the country.
The Buffington Cement Works, comprising an imposing array of crushers, furnaces and warehouses, is another example of the alertness of modern industrialism which converts all by-products into profit. Before the construction of the cement mills the slag from the steel mills was dumped into the lake for filling purposes; now it is used in the manufacture of cement and goes into the construction of sidewalks, streets and houses. The cement is composed of limestone and furnace slag, which are crushed and fed into gyratory furnaces, after which they are mixed in the proper proportions and passed through mills which complete the process of pulverization and amalgamation. The mixture is then passed through the calcining furnaces, and again run through crushers, after which it is mixed with a certain amount of gypsum, again ground and then sacked for the market. Altogether, over one thousand men are employed in the cement works, the entire valuation of which, with real estate, is placed at $8,000,000.
Decided progress has been made in the progress of the steel company's coke by-product plant. From 10,000 to 12,000 tons of coal are now used daily in the manufacture of coke for the blast furnaces, gas for the heating of the steel to be rolled and for lighting purposes, with such other by-products as tar and ammonia sulphate. The process by which coke is made at the Gary plant is entirely different from that which has been in use in the Pennsylvania coke regions. The batteries are lined up on either side of an area through which passes a railway track. At the rear of the batteries are openings and the coal which is crushed to the size of small screenings or slack is dumped into the ovens from the top of the battery. The coal is never allowed to come into contact with the flame which plays around the oven, but which does not enter it. The result is distillation of the contents, the gas escaping through the top of the oven into a pipe which carries it to the gas tanks and the tar falling into another carrier which leads it into the by-products house. The coke is pushed through the front of the oven into a waiting car and transported to the screening house, where the various sizes are assorted on screens. The gas, tar, ammonia sulphate and cyanide, all of which are by-products of the coke ovens, are afterward purified to whatever extent is necessary, much depending upon their future use. Vol. [ -21
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AMERICAN BRIDGE COMPANY, AMBRIDGE
In the names Ambridge and the American Bridge Company, the industrial workers of the country recognize a high standard of efforts made by the United States Steel Corporation to bring capital and labor into friendly relations. Ambridge, Pennsylvania, the eastern home of the American Bridge Company, and Ambridge, Indiana, a western
STREET SCENE AT AMBRIDGE
suburb of Gary, the headquarters of the company in Indiana, illustrate in a marked manner the desire of moneyed interests to provide neat, com- fortable and healthful homes for those in their employ. Success in such efforts has nowhere been more manifest in the Calumet region than at the "workingmen's suburb" of Gary.
The plant of the American Bridge Company, at that locality, is dis- tributed over 140 acres of ground, and although only two of the four units contemplated have been completed, the works already give employ- ment to 1,500 men. Construction was begun in April, 1909, being pushed at record-breaking speed so that the works might be able to sup-
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ply the structural steel for the numerous other buildings being erected at the same time by the United States Steel Corporation. Ultimately. it is contemplated that the works at Ambridge, Indiana, shall be the largest structural steel-making plant in the world.
As it now stands, the plant consists of two bridge shops; bending,
AN INDEPENDENT PLANT
forge, machine and rivet-making shops; oil, store and power houses ; shipping and receiving yards and a large office building. The present units in operation have an annual capacity of 120,000 tons of structural steel and iron.
The office building overlooks the Grand Calumet River, and is set in the midst of a park, both natural and artificial. The front, extending to the river's edge, has been terraced in a series of grassy steps, and in the grounds are a baseball park and various tennis courts for the use of employees. Across the river, south of the works, is the resident dis- triet, connected with the works by a substantial bridge. This is the suburb, or settlement, called Ambridge, and its main avenue, by that name, is a practical illustration of modern theory and practice in the
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construction of good homes for industrial workers and all others of moderate means and intelligent ideas of their living rights.
GARY BOLT AND SCREW WORKS
The only industry of any magnitude which is independent of the con- trol of the United States Steel Corporation is known as the Gary Bolt and Screw Works, completed during 1910 in East Gary. It is a branch of the Pittsburgh Bolt and Screw Works and a heavy customer of the corporation. The works cover twenty acres, employ 1,000 men and are valued at $1,500,000.
INDUSTRIES OF THE FUTURE
There are a number of industries, promoted to a greater or less extent by the corporation, which have either purchased sites or negotiated for them at Gary ; among these are the American Steel and Wire Company, National Tube Company, American Locomotive Company and the Amer- ican Car and Foundry Company, most of which have proposed to build in Gary not far from the center of the city.
INDUSTRIAL SUMMARY
From a careful sifting of accessible figures and a conference with acknowledged authorities on conditions in the industrial centers of the Calumet region, the editor believes that the following summaries are as near the facts as may be obtainable :
Cities-
No. of Employees 18,000
Acres in Sites . 2.000 1,000
Amount Investment $90,000,000
Gary .
East Chicago (Indiana Harbor) ..
10,000
40,000,000
Whiting
2,500
650
50,000,000
Hammond
8,800
600
12,000,000
Total
39,300
4,250
$192 000,000
CHAPTER XXII
BANKS AND BANKERS
IN HONOR OF JOHN BROWN-THE SPEAKERS-FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF CROWN POINT-PERSONAL SIDE OF JOHN BROWN-SECOND BANK IN THE COUNTY-FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF HAMMOND-FOUNDED BY MESSRS. TOWLE AND HAMMOND-REORGANIZED BY MESSRS. TURNER AND BELMAN-FIRST TRUST COMPANY-OTHER FINANCIAL PIONEERS -ABSORPTION OF THE COMMERCIAL BANK-LAKE COUNTY SAVINGS AND TRUST COMPANY-CITIZENS GERMAN NATIONAL -- STATE NATIONAL BANK OF LOWELL-BANK OF WHITING-FIRST NATIONAL, OF WHIT- ING-EAST. CHICAGO BANK-FIRST NATIONAL, OF EAST CHICAGO-IN- DIANA HARBOR NATIONAL BANK- FIRST CALUMET TRUST AND SAVINGS BANK-FIRST STATE BANK OF TOLLESTON- FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF GARY-GARY STATE BANK-NORTHERN STATE BANK-SOUTH SIDE TRUST AND SAVINGS BANK-OTHER LATE BANKS AND TRUST COMPA- NIES-COMMERCIAL AND PEOPLES STATE BANKS, CROWN POINT- LOWELL NATIONAL BANK-FIRST NATIONAL BANK, DYER-FARMERS AND MERCHANTS BANK, HIGHLAND.
It is only necessary to revert to the year 1913 in order to uncover the most interesting and significant facts connected with the early history of banking in Lake County ; for on November 19th of that year was gath- ered at the elegant headquarters of the Hammond Country Club a notable company of bankers to do honor to the good, strong father of the financial fraternity in that section of Indiana-John Brown, founder of the First National Bank of Crown Point in 1874, its presi- dent since 1881, and one of the most successful men and great hearts of the region.
IN HONOR OF JOHN BROWN
As was most fitting and affecting, the son of the second president of the Crown Point Bank, who preceded Mr. Brown in the presidency, was the originator and presiding officer of that affectionate reception given by representative bankers of Lake County and Chicago to the
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beloved and admired dean of them all. It was a remarkable tribute to that strength, steadfastness and warmth of character which had earned the veteran financier, farmer and citizen, such a fine and broad grade of popularity. A. M. Turner, as president of the First National Bank of Hammond, and John Brown, as president of the First National Bank of Crown Point, certainly touched many salient points in the financial chapter of Lake County.
Of the twenty-nine banks in the county, the following were repre- sented in the John Brown reception: First National, American Trust and Savings, Lake County Savings and Trust, Citizens' German Na- tional, Hammond Savings and Trust, East Side Trust and Savings, all of Hammond; Gary State Bank, Gary Trust and Savings, First National Bank, South Side Savings and Trust, and Northern State Bank, Gary; Citizens Trust and Savings and Indiana Harbor National, Indiana Har- bor : East Chicago, First Calumet and Savings and First National Bank, East Chicago; First State Bank of Tolleston: Bank of Whiting and People's State Bank, Whiting; First National and Commercial, Crown Point ; First State, Hobart and American Trust and Savings, Hobart ; Lowell National and State National, Lowell; Farmers and Merchants, Highland : National Bank of Dyer, South Chicago; First National and Continental Commercial, Chicago. In other words, twenty-eight of the Lake County banks were represented, nearly all of them by more than one delegate ; also, one South Chicago bank and two of the largest finan- cial institutions in Chicago.
THE SPEAKERS
Sixty of the most prominent bankers in Lake County and the Calu- met region were on hand to enjoy themselves and honor their guest of the evening. Mr. Turner acted as toastmaster and, in addition to his address, remarks were made by August Blum, of the First National Bank, Chicago, Daniel Norman, of the Continental Commercial Bank, of that city, Judge E. C. Fields and Hon. John B. Peterson, who had in by-gone years enjoyed confidential relations, either as bankers or lawyers, with "Good Old Honest John Brown-" at first, without the "old," but always good and honest.
Mr. Turner's opening address, after the banquet, conveys so much of interest, with a graceful touch of feeling toward his life-long friend and his father's carly associate, that it is reproduced. "The census of 1870," he said, "gave to Lake County a population of 10,000; today in the same territory we have 100,000 people.
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FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF CROWN POINT
"In 1874 the First National Bank of Crown Point was organized and for the ten years following remained the only bank in Lake County, during which period it enjoyed an average deposit of not more than $100,000. Today this county has twenty-nine banks with an average deposit of $15,000,000. During this remarkable period of development, it stands to the credit of our county that no depositor therein has ever suffered a loss by reason of such deposit. It is only l'air to presume that. much credit for this enviable banking record is due to the lessons taught, in practice and in precept, by Lake County's first bank : for, gentlemen, the First National Bank of Crown Point has always been, and is today, the uncompromising foe of unsound banking and unsound business.
"That this unusual record should attain in the short period of the business life of a man yet in the hey-day of his usefulness is to my mind sufficient justification for this gathering of his friends to pay tribute to the dean of Lake County's banks -a charter member, a member of the first board of directors and for thirty years president, and now the active head, of Lake County's first and probably best managed bank.
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