USA > Indiana > Lake County > A standard history of Lake County, Indiana, and the Calumet region, Volume II > Part 8
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Mr. Granger is a veteran of the Philippine war, and came to Ham- mond after several years of service with the American army in those islands. He enlisted November 23, 1898, as a private in Company D of the Fourth United States Infantry, and soon afterwards sailed from New York for Manila. His service lasted for three years in the Philip- pines, and he had several promotions, having acted as quartermaster for some time, and after an honorable discharge in 1901 returned to America and began his business career in Hammond.
CARL E. BAUER. One of the largest and most important industries located at Hammond is the Simplex Railway Appliance Company, of which Carl E. Bauer is manager. This business ranks as one of the older Hammond concerns, having been established in that city in 1898. The output of the Simplex Company comprises various kinds of car and railway appliances, and the product goes all over the United States. How important is its relation to the general industrial prosperity of the city is indicated by the fact that on its payroll are about seven hun- dred and fifty persons, while the annual amount paid out in wages and salaries is about half a million dollars. The plant occupies forty acres of ground, and has an investment of about a million dollars.
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Carl Edward Bauer, who is an expert mechanical engineer as well as a first-class business man, has been an American citizen for thirty years, during all of which time he has been identified with some phase of car manufacturing. He was born in the Village of Langenholzhausen, Lippe-Detmold, Germany, November 5, 1857. His parents were Ferdin- and E. and Minna (Bock) Bauer, who spent all their lives in the old country and lived to great old age. The family were prominent in their home community, the grandfather having been a miller and mayor of this village, and the father followed in the same occupation, and was also mayor of his town and enjoyed the complete respect and esteem of all his old neighbors and associates until the last.
Carl E. Baner, who spent his younger years in Germany, and who served in the cavalry branch of the regular army as a non-commissioned officer and later as lientenant in the army reserve, had a technical educa- tion in the fine German schools, attending both the gymnasium and the polytechnic college. On coming to America in 1882 Mr. Bauer first located in Terre Haute, Indiana, and became mechanical engineer in the shops of the Terre Haute Car Manufacturing Company. In 1887 he moved to Muskegon, Michigan, and was with the Muskegon Car Com- pany until 1892. From that date until 1895 he was with the Indiana Car and Foundry Company at Indianapolis, and then spent two years with the Illinois Car and Equipment Company. Mr. Bauer has been identi- fied with the Simplex Railway Appliance Company since 1897, and came to Hammond when the company established its shops in that city in 1898. As secretary of the company he had an active part in its manage- ment, and his thorough knowledge of practical details of manufacture has made him an additionally valuable asset in the successful upbuilding of the business. In the fall of 1913 the American Steel Foundries Com- pany took over the Simplex Railway Appliance Company, and since that time Mr. Baner has had entire management of the Hammond works.
In April, 1887, Mr. Bauer married Miss Olga Wittenberg, a daughter of Otto and Charlotte (Sachs) Wittenberg. Their children are: Wal- ter; Gretchen; Carl; Minnie, who died at the age of six years; Ernest, who died in infancy; and Emil. Mr. Bauer affiliates with the Masons, Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias, and in poli- tics is a republican.
RICHARD ZIMMERMANN. The business enterprise of Richard Zimmer- mann at Hammond as a contractor and builder is probably without ex- ception the largest and in the past twenty years has brought about more actual building construction than can be credited to any other man in that field. Mr. Zimmermann besides his work as a builder, has had a prominent part in general business affairs, is connected with several banks and commercial organizations, and is one of the largest property owners in West Hammond, and was practically one of the founders of that city.
In Weigelsdorf, Kreis Minsterberg, near Breslau, Germany, Richard Zimmermann was born in 1862. His father, August Zimmermann, was a flour miller. His life up to the age of twenty-one was spent in his native land, and besides a training in the common schools an appren- ticeship of three years at the cabinetmaker's trade gave him a technical equipment and start on the career in which his chief success has been made. At the age of twenty-one in 1883, Richard Zimmermann crossed the ocean, landed at New York, spent four months at work at his trade
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in the east, worked for some time at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was a cabi- netmaker in Chicago until October, 1884, went south to New Orleans, returned to Chicago, and again went to New Orleans, and worked as a cabinetmaker and carpenter for four years in that city. In 1889, after these various changes and mature experience in his trade and in busi- ness affairs generally, Mr. Zimmermann located at Hammond, and was one of the early carpenters and builders in what was still a small town. During the first five years he did more work as a cabinetmaker than as a carpenter, but in 1894 established a business as contractor and builder in all the branches.
Mr. Zimmermann has the distinction of having constructed the first house in West Hammond. During the twenty years of his relations as a building contractor he has put up about four hundred buildings of all kinds in Hammond and vicinity, and that record probably sur- passes that of any other builder in this section. Among the many structures erected by him is the First National Bank building. Mr. Zimmermann is vice-president and one of the organizers of the West Hammond Trust & Savings Bank, is vice-president and also an organizer of the West Hammond Building & Loan Association, and is the owner of the one-story building erected especially for the bank in West Ham- mond. Mr. Zimmermann was one of the first aldermen in the village of West Hammond, when the town was laid out and incorporated, in Feb- ruary, 1893, and served two years. When the city was incorporated he was again chosen a member of the council in 1912.
At New Orleans in 1887 Mr. Zimmermann married Frances Rauch, who was born in Germany. They have become the parents of eight children : August, who is a carpenter and associated with his father; Paul, also a Hammond carpenter; Anna, who lives at home; Henry, a carpenter at Hammond; John, a painter by trade and living in Ham- mond; Herman and Mary, both in school; and Richard, Jr., the young- est. The family are members and communicants of the St. Joseph's church. Mr. Zimmermann affiliates with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and is a member of the Fidelia Saengerbund, the German singing society of Hammond.
CHARLES H. MAYER is one of the pioneer business men of Ham- mond. Forty years ago he was an employee in the packing com- pany, a young man down in the ranks, almost unknown outside the immediate circle of his acquaintances, and all the capital and resources that have been most significant in his rise to prominence were con- tained within his own head and hands. Charles H. Mayer is regarded as the originator of several enterprises which have brought distinction to Hammond as a commercial center. He is a manufacturer, and any- one who knows Hammond knows something of the work accomplished by Charles H. Mayer.
Charles H. Mayer is a native of the Province of Holstein, Ger- many, born October 8, 1853, a son of Mathias and Maria (Loescher) Mayer. In 1876, after Charles H. Mayer had got established and was earning a living in this country, he had his parents and his brother August, who is now a citizen of West Hammond, come to this country, and the father and mother both spent the rest of their lives at Ham- mond. The elder Mayer, who was born November 18, 1815, died May 17, 1902, while the mother who was born April 18, 1813, died March 12, 1883.
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Charles H. Mayer, while growing up in Germany learned the trade of millwright, serving an apprenticeship of three and a half years. He was twenty years old when he left the German fatherland on the 1st of November, 1873, and on the 17th day of that month arrived in Chicago. After a few months his enterprise was directed towards Hammond, in which village then chiefly distinguished for its packing plant, he arrived on March 4, 1874, and began to work at his trade on different contracts in the territory between Hammond and Chicago. Later Justice Loescher, a relative on his mother's side, employed him as foreman in the Hammond Packing Company until 1876. Until August 1, 1876, he worked as clerk in a grocery store. For the follow- ing ten years he was connected with the activities of Thomas Hammond.
Such were the somewhat humble and ordinary beginnings of Mr. Mayer's successful career. In 1886 he established a bottling works, under the name of C. H. Mayer & Company, and that firm is one of the largest of its kind in the Calumet District, and has been furnishing reliable goods over a large territory for nearly thirty years. The business is now incorporated and Mr. Mayer is secretary and treasurer. That was only one of a number of business organizations with which his influence and work have been vital factors. He established the Ham- mond Ice Company, and is still president. He is vice president of the Hammond Brewing Company, of which he was one of the organizers ; is vice president of the Western Grain Products Company ; is president of the West Hammond Building and Loan Association; a director in the West Hammond Trust & Savings Bank; director and vice presi- dent of the American Trust & Savings Bank; secretary and treasurer of the Hammond Asphalt Products Company; and is president of the Hammond Brass Works. He was for two terms tax collector for West Hammond, and has also served as treasurer of the school district com- prising West Hammond, in the fractional township of Thornton in Cook County, Illinois. Mr. Mayer is a director of the Chicago Bottlers Clearing House Association. In Masonry he has taken thirty-two degrees of the Scottish Rite and belongs to the Shrine, and also has affiliations with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Tribe of Ben Hur, the Royal League, the Independent Order of Foresters.
At Hammond on December 19, 1877, Mr. Mayer married Louisa Drackert, and they have a fine family of twelve children, namely : Salome, the wife of Henry Shomaker, now president of the Western Grain Products Company of Hammond ; Maria, wife of William Hanlon, a stone cutter in Hammond; Joseph P., bookkeeper for the Hammond Brewery, and who married Ida Bach; Anna, wife of Henry Reissig, secretary of the American Trust & Savings Bank at IIammond ; George, connected with the C. H. Mayer Company; Charles, also with that company ; Louisa, Margaret, Fred, all at home; Julius and Adelaide, both students; and John who is still at home.
CHARLES H. FRIEDRICH. A native son of Lake County and a member of one of the early settled families in that part of the state, Charles HI. Friedrich has had a long and active career, was one time sheriff of the county, and is now in the real estate and insurance business at Hammond. He has assisted in the promotion and extension of the industrial city and general improvement of its community along all lines, and is one of the prominent men in the Calumet District.
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Charles H. Friedrich was born March 14, 1861, at Crown Point, a son of Henry and Frederica (Klinkerman) Friederich. His father was for many years well known as a stock raiser and butcher in Lake County. Born in Germany, he came to America in 1854, and in that year settled in Lake County, at a time when both its settlement and development were only a few degrees removed from pioneer condi- tions. Charles H. Friedrich grew up in Crown Point, attended the public schools, and later took a course in a business college in Chicago. From the time he was twelve years of age he had experience in buying stock with his father, and usually spent his summers in that line of work and after his schooling was finished made it his vocation until he was elected sheriff of Lake County in 1892. His service as sheriff continued until the close of 1894. It will be recalled that was a time of great industrial turbulence, when strikes prevailed in almost every line of business, and were especially virulent in the region about Lake Michigan. Conditions finally became so bad as to necessitate the calling out of the United States regular troops to quiet the violence. Sheriff Friedrich was engaged most of his time with many deputies guarding property and trying to preserve law and order in strike districts through- out Northern Lake County.
Following his term as sheriff he was for two years in the hardware business in Crown Point, and then moved to Hammond and established his office as a real estate and fire insurance dealer. For the past twenty years Mr. Friedrich has bought and sold a large amount of real estate in and about Hammond and perhaps his largest transaction was the promotion and sale of the Fairview addition to Hammond, a tract of twenty-eight acres. He has also dealt extensively in property in Gary, East Chicago and Crown Point.
Mr. Friedrich is affiliated with the Mystic Shrine, and also belongs to the Knights of Pythias and is a charter member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and is likewise a member of the Independent Order of Foresters and the Knights of the Maccabees. His church is the Presbyterian. On September 17, 1890, Mr. Friedrich married Emma Miller, of Crown Point, a daughter of Mathias and Barbara Miller. Her family came to Lake County in 1849, among the pioneers, and her father, who died in 1895, was long well known as a hotel man in Crown Point. Mr. Friedrich and wife have two children: Edwin H., who . during his college career in DePauw University at Greencastle won high honors in the oratory contest ; and Hulda, who is now a student in the Milwaukee College.
MAC TURNER. While his career has been comparatively brief, the record of Mac Turner as an architect is one of solid accomplishment, and a number of the high-class structures in the Calumet District may be credited to his genius as an originator of the design and supervisor of the practical construction.
Mac Turner was born in Southern Indiana on August 2, 1883, a son of James M. and Margaret (McClure) Turner. His father, who now lives in Hammond, was for many years engaged in school work. Mac Turner graduated from the high school at Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and took his technical studies in the Art Institute at Chicago. His home has been in Hammond since 1902, and after several years of conscientious effort he established a reputation and has since been getting some of the more substantial rewards of success. He has been the architect
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for several schoolhouses and business blocks in Hammond and vicinity, and in East Chicago was architect for the Cohn Building, the Friedman Building, the Calumet Bank Building at Indiana Harbor, and many others of only less importance.
Mr. Turner is a member of the Hammond Commercial Club and the Hammond Country Club, and has fraternal relations with the Benevo- lent and Protective Order of Elks, with the Knights of Pythias and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. In October, 1910, he married Faye Conner of Xenia, Ohio. They have one child, James M.
THE HAMMOND TELEPHONE EXCHANGE. Beginning with a single line station in Tony Schacher's drug store in 1884, the telephone business in Hammond has grown steadily until today there are 3,500 telephones in use in the city. The telephone is so indispensable an adjunct and convenience of modern commerce that the following account of the development of the Hammond Telephone Exchange during a period of thirty years forms a brief but interesting historical chapter to illustrate one phase of growth in the Calumet District.
The present exchange occupies a two-story building and an addition is now being made to this at a cost of $15,000. The switchboard equip- ment of the present exchange has twenty-one operators' positions, four- teen for local operators and seven for toll operators. When the new addition is completed the equipment will be increased to provide posi- tions for a total of nineteen local operators and eight toll operators.
In the early days telephone development in Hammond was very slow. Between 1894 and 1896 only thirty-seven telephones were installed. In December, 1896, O. A. Krinbill bought out the drug store of Toney Schacher. Mr. Krinbill conducted the exchange in connection with his drug business until 1899, when the number of subscribers had grown to 192. In that year Theo. Lee Ford succeeded Mr. Krimbill as manager. In the following year, 1900, the exchange had two managers, C. J. Huff succeeding J. C. Terry, who took Ford's place. In 1901 R. B. Adams assumed charge of the exchange. Two years later, in 1903, when the number of subscribers had reached 470, a new exchange was erected and O. A. Krinbill, who previously had conducted the telephone exchange in his drug store, gave up his drug business to become manager of the new telephone exchange. In 1905 the number of telephone stations crossed the thousand mark, and the business had gained steadily every year since with the exception of 1908 when there was a decrease in the number of stations on account of the panic of the preceding year.
At the present time the Hammond Exchange handles an average of twenty thousand local calls per day, while the number of messages sent from Hammond to outside points average about six hundred per day. Telephone facilities between Hammond and surrounding cities and towns are unsurpassed, as is shown by the following list of toll lines connect- ing Hammond with outside points: Chicago, seventeen lines; South Chicago, four lines; West Pullman, one line; Morrell Park, three lines; East Chicago, seven lines; Crown Point, two lines; Chicago Heights, two lines ; Blue Island, one line ; Gary, four lines ; Hobart, two lines ; Harvey, one line; Whiting, three lines; and South Bend, two lines. A new line is now being strung to Chicago and five new lines to South Chicago, which will make a total of thirty-one toll lines connecting Hammond with tele- phone exchanges within the Chicago City limits.
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The Hammond Exchange has a total operating force of thirty-four employes, including the supervisors, chief operators, etc. The exchange building and equipment are modern in every respect. Besides the operat- ing room, there is a rest room, and lunch room for the use of operators, and a spacious locker-room where operators keep their wraps in individual lockers. Hammond is the district headquarters of the Chicago Telephone Company in Indiana. O. A. Krinbill is now district manager, and under him are T. W. Jones, plant chief; R. N. Patchen, traffic chief; and J. J. Carroll, chief clerk.
O. A. KRINBILL. The name Krinbill has been one of prominence in connection with business affairs, farming, merchandising, banking, and in the public interests of Lake County for more than fifty years. Mr. O. A. Krinbill's career is especially identified with the City of Ham- mond, which has been his home since 1886. He is district manager for the Chicago Telephone Company, has given some service both in local and county offices, and is one of Lake County's bankers and foremost men of affairs.
Oscar Arnold Krinbill was born at Crown Point, Indiana, August 3, 1863. His parents, George and Anna Mary (Arnold) Krinbill, were both natives of Pennsylvania, and on coming west located for a brief time in Chicago, and in the fall of 1850 became early settlers in Lake County. George Krinbill for a number of years was a general merchant at Cedar Lake, later was in business at Crown Point, and on account of ill health finally retired to his farm, and lived in comfort for twenty years. Then returning to Crown Point, he was one of the active mer- chants of that city until his death.
Mr. O. A. Krinbill spent most of his boyhood on a farm, received sufficient education to equip him for all the practical duties of life, and at an early age had some experience in his father's store, and thus was possessed of serviceable knowledge when he began doing for himself.
In 1886, after spending a year in Kansas, where he took up a claim and worked as a homesteader, he came to Hammond and found employ- ment in the old Spring factory, at that time one of the flourishing local industries. Later he studied pharmacy, and was engaged in the drug business at Hammond until 1903, when he sold out. Mr. Krinbill was the first local agent for the Chicago Telephone Company at Hammond, and the first exchange of that company was operated in his store, and had only twenty-five subscribers. With the rapid upbuilding of the town, and also with the rapid extension of the telephone service all over the country, the local telephone exchange soon grew to be an independent institution, and it required not only a number of operators but also the steady superintendence of one or more men. In September, 1903, Mr. Krinbill accepted the management of the Hammond exchange, in 1906 his field of supervision was extended to the management of the East Chicago, the Indiana Harbor and the Whiting exchanges, Lowell and St. Johns were added to the district in 1910, and in 1914, Mr. Krinbill was pro- moted to the office of district manager for the company, with supervision over all the exchanges in the Calumet Region.
Mr. Krinbill, while a successful business man, has not neglected his part in public affairs. For six years he was a member of the Board of Education at Hammond, he gave five years of service in the office of county commissioner, having been appointed to fill a vacancy in January, 1903. During his service as a member of the county board, the court-
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house was rebuilt at Crown Point, a new jail was constructed, and also the building for the Lake County Superior Court at Hammond was com- pleted. Mr. Krinbill is a member of the board of public safety at Hammond, was one of the organizers and is a director of the Hammond Chamber of Commerce, is a member of the Hammond County Club and the University Club, has taken the lodge, chapter and commandery degree in Masonry, has membership in the Mystic Shrine, and also belongs to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and to the Knights of Pythias. Mr. Krinbill was one of the organizers of the Ameri- can Trust & Savings Bank of Hammond, served as its first president, and is still a director. He is president of the Indiana Union Telephone and Telegraph Company at Crown Point, and is a director of the Lake County Title & Guarantee Company, with offices both in Hammond and Crown Point.
Mr. Krinbill was married on June 15, 1893, to Miss Edith Weaver, of Burr Oak, Michigan. Her parents were Edward and Anna (Ran- dolph) Weaver, farmers of Southern Michigan. Mr. Krinbill and wife have one child, Marie Josephine.
INDIANA STEEL COMPANY. WILLIAM P. GLEASON. The builder of the Gary works of the Indiana Steel Company, the original and central institution in the great industrial community that has since made Gary City famous throughout the world, is William P. Gleason, an old and tried worker in the iron and steel industry. Mr. Gleason began as a youthful employe at Joliet, Illinois, and for several years prior to his removal to Gary was employed as an executive official by the United States Steel Corporation.
As the nucleus of the present City of Gary, the works of the Indiana Steel Company and other subsidiary corporations of the United States Steel Corporation, have received a large amount of space in this publi- cation, but it will be not inappropriate to quote a few sentences in intro- duction to this sketch from a handsome pamphlet issued by the Indiana Steel Company in October, 1913.
In the spring of 1906 the Indiana Steel Company, a subsidiary of the United States Steel Corporation, commenced the building of a steel plant known as Gary Works, at Gary. The steel plant was planned to consist of eight blast furnaces, fifty-six open hearth furnaces and iron and steel foundry, rail mill, billet mill, plate mill, merchant bar mills, car axle plant, large slabbing mills, and a by-product coke-oven plant, together with auxiliary shops, including machine shop, roll shop, elec- tric repair shop, blacksmith shop, etc. The first blast furnace was com- pleted and put in operation December 21, 1908. This was followed by the completion of the first open-hearth unit of fourteen furnaces and the rail mill in February, 1909. Before the close of the year 1909, sev- eral of the merchant bar mills were completed and placed in operation. During the year of 1911 the remainder of the plant construction work was practically completed, including the construction of 560 by-product coke-ovens.
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