Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes, Part 104

Author: Dunn, Jacob Piatt, 1855-1924. cn
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 972

USA > Indiana > Marion County > Indianapolis > Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes > Part 104

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On the 23rd of October, 1893, Dr. Lnken- bill was united in marriage to Miss Pearl Cline, who was born at Clayton, Hendricks County, Indiana, and who is a daughter of David and Florence Cline. Mrs. Lukenbill was educated in the Central Normal College,

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at Danville, Indiana, and she is a member of the Washington Street Presbyterian Church and is identified with a number of clubs.

STERLING R. HOLT. Through the applica- tion of his own powers and talents it has been given this well known and popular citi- zen of Indianapolis to attain to definite suc- cess in connection with the practical activities of life, and his efforts have ever been directed along normal and legitimate lines of business. He is in a significant sense the architect of his own fortunes, and that he has made a worthy accomplishment stands alike credita- ble to his ambition and tenacity of purpose and to his inflexible integrity, through which alone are public confidence and esteem be- gotten. He has long wielded an influence in public affairs in his home city and state and gained recognition as one of the powerful leaders in the ranks of the Democratic party in Indiana. He is now engaged in the whole- sale ice business, having large interests in this line in different parts of the state and being undoubtedly the most extensive indi- vidual ice dealer in this commonwealth.

Sterling R. Holt is a scion of an old and prominent family of North Carolina, of which a representative of this family served as governor. Mr. Holt's parents were Seymour P. and Nancy A. Holt, and he was born in the village of Graham, Alliance County, that state, on the 26th of March, 1850, and both parents were natives of North Carolina, where they passed their entire lives. The ravages of the Civil War brought serious financial reverses to the family, and thus the subject of this review was denied in his youth the educational advantages which other- wise would have been accorded him. He at- tended the common schools of his native state as opportunity offered, but he early be- gan to depend largely upon his own resources, initiating his career as one of the world's gallant army of workers while he was a mere youth. At the age of nineteen years Mr. Holt came to Indianapolis, where he gave his at- tention to such employment as he could se- cure, having no false pride and realizing that only through individual endeavor could he finally reach the goal of his ambition, the castle of his dreams. His determination and zeal led him to seek to supplement his some- what meager education, and this he did by finally completing a course in the Bryant & Stratton Business College, in Indianapolis. In 1872 he secured a clerical position in the retail dry-goods establishment of the firm of Muir & Foley, and he continued in the cm- 'ploy of this concern for three years. By ut- most frugality and constant application he

had by this time accumulated a small capital, and at the expiration of the period noted he resigned his position with the dry-goods house and associated himself with a practical pharmacist, in the opening of a drug store, which was located at 164 West Washington street. The enterprise was successfully con- ducted for the ensuing seven years, during the last four of which Mr. Holt was also en- gaged in the ice business. In 1880 he dis- posed of his interest in the drug store and became associated with others in the organiza- tion of the Indianapolis Ice Company. In 1888 was made a division of the business and he retained control of its wholesale depart- ment. He brought to bear characteristic energy and discrimination in the conducting of the enterprise in an individual way, and thus his success became cumulative and sub- stantial, with the rapid development of the business. He finally became interested in ice companies and firms in various other cities and towns of the state, and his investments in this line are now of extensive and impor- tant order. The Indianapolis enterprise is conducted under his own name and is the largest of the kind in the city.

Though essentially a business man, Mr. Holt is too broad-minded and progressive to have permitted his personal interests to en- gross his entire time and attention, and he has been a prominent figure in the councils and campaign manœuvers of the Democratic party, having long been an uncompromising and intelligent advocate of the basic princi- ples for which the Democratic party stands sponsor. During the administration of Mayor Sullivan Mr. Holt was president of the board of public safety for Indianapolis. In 1890 he was elected chairman of the Mar- ion County Democratic central committee, and in 1892 he was elected county treasurer, securing at the polls a majority that well in- dicated the strong hold. he has ever main- tained upon popular confidence and esteem in the city and county of his adoption. He gave an admirable administration of the fis- cal affairs of the county, but he did not be- come a candidate for re-election. In 1895 Mr. Holt had the distinction of being chosen chairman of the Democratic state central committee of Indiana, but he resigned this position after the national convention of the party in 1896, because of his disapproval of the free-silver plank in the platform adopted under the domination of William Jennings Bryan. Since that time his activities in the party have not been so marked as previously, though his fidelity to the generic cause has not waned in the least iota. His genial per-

Chithur Jordan

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sonality, vitality and earnestness made him an effective political worker, and the same elements of character have gained to him the inviolable friendship of those with whom he has come in closer contact in the various re- lations of life. In the York Rite of the time honored Masonic fraternity Mr. Holt is af- filiated with the lodge of the Free & Ac- cepted Masons, the Chapter of the Royal Arch Masons; and the Commandery of the Knights Templar. In the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite he has attained to the thirty- second degree and is affiliated with Indiana Sovereign Consistory, Sublime Princes of the Royal Secret, besides which he is found en- rolled as a popular and appreciative member of Murat Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He is also a member of the Knights of Pythias. He is identified in an active way with the Indian- apolis Board of Trade and holds member- ship in the Commercial Club, a representa- tive civic organization of the capital city.

On the 18th of November, 1874, Mr. Holt was united in marriage to Miss Mary Gregg, who was born and reared in Indiana and who is a daughter of Martin Gregg, a promi- nent business man of Danville, this state.

ARTHUR JORDAN. A man pre-eminently de- serving of the title "Captain of Industry" is he whose name initiates this sketch. A life- long resident of Indianapolis, he is essentially one of the representative business men of the capital city of Indiana, and stands as a worthy scion of one of its honored pioneer families. His influence has permeated the city's life in many directions. He has realized a large and substantial success in the business world, and has established a nation-wide acquaintance in the commercial and financial world. His ac- tivities embrace commercial, manufacturing and financial enterprises. Progressive and en- ergetic in the management of affairs of broad scope and importance, philanthropic and pub- lic-spirited as a citizen, he holds an enviable place in popular esteem, and has contributed greatly to the civic and material progress of the "Greater Indianapolis."

Mr. Jordan possesses in marked degree the power of initiative, and his career has shown the wise application of definite subjective forces and the control of objective agencies in such a way as to obtain results of large and ap- preciable value. His business efforts from the beginning have been notable for the introduc- tion of new methods and systems and the in- jecting of new ideas into every undertaking with which he has been identified. Through his efforts the cold storing of perishable prod- uce was practically revolutionized in the West

from the old method of ice cooling to me- chanical refrigeration, which has since been universally adopted, and to him is chiefly due the successful development of transporting perishable produce, particularly eggs and poul- try, from the West to the seaboard during the summer season. It was also through his ef- forts that the manufacturing of butter by con- centrating the milk product into creameries scattered throughout the dairying districts of this State was first established here. Building upon these methods as a foundation, his busi- ness in poultry, eggs and butter became the largest of the kind in the United States, his product mounting into millions annually, and giving him a wide reputation for constructive and executive ability.

Mr. Jordan was born in the town of Madi- son, Jefferson county, Indiana, September 1, 1855, and is a son of Gilmore and Harriet (Mclaughlin) Jordan, the former of French Huguenot and the latter of Scotch lineage. Both families were founded in America in the colonial era of our national history.

Gilmore Jordan was born at Greensburg, Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, on the 16th of November, 1824, and he passed the closing years of his long and useful life in In- dianapolis, where he died in February, 1897. His devoted wife, who was born in 1830, sur- vived him by a full decade and was summoned to the life eternal in August, 1907. Their mar- riage was solemnized in Indianapolis and they became the parents of one son and three daughters, concerning whom the following data are entered: Alice, the eldest, is the widow of Emory Baxter, formerly of Washington, D. C .; Emma, now deceased, became the wife of Dow McClain, formerly of Indianapolis ; Arthur, who is the immediate subject of this review, was the next in order of birth; and Agnes, who is the wife of Wallace Sherwood, of Indianapolis.

Gilmore Jordan was a lad of twelve years at the time of the family removal from the old Keystone State to Indianapolis, where he was afforded the advantages of the common schools of the pioneer days and also pursued a classical course under the able preceptorship of Professor Kemper, a prominent educator and scholar. When twenty-one years of age Gilmore volunteered and was enlisted for ser- vice in the Mexican War. He served as fife major of his regiment throughout the war, proving a gallant and able soldier, though a mere youth. After the close of the war with Mexico he returned to Indianapolis, and was a resident of this city at the inception of the Civil war. Being in Washington, D. C., on official business when Fort Sumter was fired

Vol. II-33

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upon, he forthwith tendered his services in the cause of the Union, enlisting in the Army of the Potomac. He served with distinction throughout the war, receiving the rank of Cap- tain, was Division Quartermaster during the later years, and was brevetted Major at the close of the war. After the close of the war he again returned for several years to the gov- ernment service in the City of Washington. He passed the closing years of his life in In- dianapolis, where he was held in the highest confidence and esteem and where his death oc- curred in the year 1897, in the seventy-second. year of his age. In politics he was originally an old-line Whig, but he identified himself with the Republican party at the time of its organization, giving his support to its first presidential candidate, General John C. Fre- mont, and thereafter continuing a stalwart ad- vocate of its principles and policies. He was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and actively affiliated with Major Robert An- derson Post, of Indianapolis, at the time of his death.

Ephraim Jordan, grandfather of him to whom this sketch is dedicated, was a native of Pennsylvania, and took up his abode in In- dianapolis in the year of 1836. He was one of the pioneer hotel men and an honored and influential citizen of the embryonic metropolis of the state. He was one of the founders of the Presbyterian Church in this city, and it was largely through his instrumentality that Rev. Henry Ward Beecher was called to the pastorate, where as a young man he was greatly loved and his abilities recognized prior to his assuming the pastorate which he held for many years in the City of Brooklyn, New York, where he was destined to achieve national reputation as a pulpit orator. Ephraim Jordan was a man of broad and liberal views and apprecia- tive intellectuality, and he did much to aid the civic and material progress of the Indiana cap- ital in the earlier period of its history. He here continued to maintain his home until his death

Arthur Jordan is indebted to the public schools of Indianapolis and the City of Wash- ington, D. C., for his early educational dis- cipline, which included a high school course. His initial business experience was gained in connection with the handling of subscription books. He secured employment in this line with Colonel Samuel C. Vance, of Indianapolis, by whom he was later admitted to partnership in the enterprise. Still later he purchased the interest of Colonel Vance and continued the business successfully in Indianapolis until 1876. He disposed of this business and that same year, the centennial, identified himself with the

line of industry in which he was destined to attain great success and prestige.

As a dealer in produce, Mr. Jordan developed within the short period of two decades the largest and most important business of the kind in the Union. The year 1894 found recorded to him the ownership of more than fifty pack- ing and cold-storage plants in Indiana and Illi- nois, devoted entirely to the packing and ship- ping of poultry and eggs, practically all ship- ments from these extensive depositories going direct to the eastern markets. Mr. Jordan not only had the prescience to determine the pos- sibilities of developing this line of enterprise and to initiate ways and means, but he also set to himself the idea of maintaining the product at the highest standard of excellence. The methods introduced by him in the buying of live poultry and preparing it for packing and shipment have since been universally adopted by the trade and have inured greatly to its development and success. He utilized the utmost care in the application of cold-storage processes, and his products thus reached the great eastern markets in such fine condition as to gain to his company the highest reputation, with resultant confidence and supporting pat- ronage, at times his shipments constituting fully one-half the entire supply of poultry en- tering the New York markets. The business thus established was sold in 1903, to Nelson Morris & Company, the great meat packing concern of Chicago. Mr. Jordan is still known throughout the country as an authority in all details and methods touching the special lines of produce whose generic commercial import- ance and successful handling no man has done more to develop and foster.

In response to a request from a leading produce paper, about the time of the sale of this business, Mr. Jordan gave out the follow- ing brief statement:

"It was in the fall of 1876 that I made my start in a very small way, as a boy of twenty years, in Indianapolis, where I bought out a small jobbing concern handling butter and eggs. At first I gave special attention to the local trade, but soon found the eastern mar- kets both attractive and profitable, and within a few years the shipping end of the business required the greater part of my attention. The methods of handling and marketing perishable produce in those days were very differeri from those of the present day. Eggs were shipped in barrels, and butter was usually forwarded from this section in rolls. The refrigerator car facilities were very meager, and altogether every one connected with the trade had much to learn.

---

"In addition to five creameries which I built

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and operated prior to 1882, I took on ponltry as a side line, not dreaming then that it would eclipse all my other interests. A few experi- mental shipments of iced poultry had been made by others from this section, but no suc- cess had been made of it up to that time. «To me it proved a winner from the start. I made a careful study of the freighting facilities from this section to the seaboard, and gave much time and attention to obtaining a thorough un- derstanding of the market requirements and extending my acquaintance with the leading men in the trade, while also giving close study to their methods. To this and to the connec- tions I early succeeded in making with the best houses in our line in New York and Boston I attribute the success I have had in developing the egg, poultry and butter trade of Indiana and Illinois. As a pioneer in this line in the central west, I am proud of the high rank to which the quality and grading of the poultry and eggs of this section have been raised.

"I have always considered that success as a shipper does not depend so much upon the quantity handled as upon the quality of the goods and the reputation of the 'mark' or brand. I have, however, succeeded in handling a good volume as well. Over ten thousand cases of eggs (300,000 dozen) bought in one week from farmers and hucksters; twenty-eight hundred barrels (600,000 lbs.) of iced poultry (fresh-dressed) for a single week's shipment; a complete line of twenty-two refrigerator cars loaded with our shipments for one day's out- put only ; the sale of twenty-four thousand dol- lars worth of plumage and other feathers picked from the poultry handled at our own houses in one season, are some of the banner events in the history of the business of the Arthur Jordan Company, and convey some idea of the magnitude of the production of poultry in this section, being second only to corn and wheat in volume."

Aggressive and broad-minded and with his sinews of accomplishment strengthened by pre- vious successes, Mr. Jordan has wielded a potent influence in industrial affairs aside from the enterprise to which reference has already been made. In 1892 he effected the organiza- tion of the Keyless Lock Company, of which he has since continued the president, and thia concern, with its well equipped plants, adds its quota to the industrial pre-eminence of In- dianapolis. The products of the manufactory, which include the equipment of U. S. post- offices and U. S. mail cars, are to be found in cvery section of the Union as well as in foreign countries.

In 1894 Mr. Jordan gave further evidence of his initiative ability by organizing the City

Ice Company, of Indianapolis, in which he still has an active interest. This company not only has a large and modern plant for the manu- facturing of ice, but also is one of the largest ice-distributing factors in the city.

In 1898 Mr. Jordan organized the Capital Gas Engine Company, of which he is president and controlling stockholder. The products of this concern are gas and gasoline engines of superior and latest type and exceptional merit.

In 1900 he became president of the Meridian Life & Trust Company, of Indianapolis, bring- ing about its reorganization as a legal-resewe corporation, and this institution as reorganized, and known as the Meridian Life Insurance Company, now ranks as one of the most im- portant life insurance companies of the middle west, exercising beneficent functions and bas- ing its operations upon ample capital and most effective executive control.

In 1906 Mr. Jordan organized the Interna- tional Machine Tool Company, already one of the city's most prominent industries, and this enterprise, like all others with which he has identified himself, has felt the definite in- fluence of his mature judgment, keen business acumen and dynamic progressiveness.

No' citizen of Indianapolis has been more appreciative of its attractions and advantages and none has more insistent faith in its still greater future, and Mr .. Jordan has won his success and his untarnished reputation through his own abilities and well directed energies as one of the stanch and loyal citizens of In- dianapolis and none has maintained higher civic ideals or bolder conceptions of future possi- bilities. Such a man could not withdraw him- self into the narrow confines of self-aggrandize- ment and individual advancement, and Mr. Jordan has ever been prominent as a supporter of worthy charities and benevolences, public enterprises and civic measures tending to fur- ther the general welfare of the community.

In politics, though never manifesting aught of ambition for public office, Mr. Jordan gives a stanch allegiance to the Republican party, and both he and his wife are zealous and valued members of the First Baptist Church of In- dianapolis, with which he has been identified since 1868 and to the support of whose direct and collateral work he has contributed with liberality and with full appreciation of his stewardship. He has been a member of its Board of Trustees for a quarter of a century, is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Indianapolis Young Women's Christian As- sociation, of the Board of Trustees of the Tech- nical Institute, and deeply interested in the Young Men's Christian Association, having re- cently pledged the entire amount required for

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a complete Y. M. C. A. building in Rangoon, the capital city of Burmah, a city of over 300,000 inhabitants, where there are now sev- eral thousand native Christians and where a great work among the young men of Burmah is in progress under the auspices of this asso- ciation. He is closely identified with many of the charities of the city, is also a member of the directorate of Franklin College and of the Board of Corporators of Crown Hill cemetery. In the time-honored Masonic fraternity his af- filiations are with Mystic Tic Lodge No. 398, Free and Accepted Masons; Keystone Chapter No. 6, Roval Arch Masons; and Raper Com- mandery No. 1, Knights Templar. By virtue of his father's services as a commissioned of- ficer in two wars, he is eligible to and holds membership in the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, and in his home city he is. identified with the Commercial, Columbia and Marion Clubs, representative civic organizations of the Indiana capital.

On the 15th of December, 1875, was solem- nized the marriage of Mr. Jordan to Miss Rose-Alba Burke, who was born in Indianap- olis on the 12th of November, 1856, who is a daughter of Henry and Amanda (Moore) Burke, both of whom were born in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. Mr. and Mrs. Jordan became the parents of three children, con- cerning whom brief record is here offered in conclusion of this sketch: Esther is the wife of Mr. Orlando B. Iles, of Indianapolis, and they have two children-Elizabeth E. and Arthur Jordan Iles; Robert Gilmore Jordan, the second child, died in 1886, at the age of six years; Alma is the wife of Mr. John S. Kittle, of Indianapolis, and they have one child-Rosamond.

AUGUST M. KUHN. It is uniformly con- ceded that the great empire of Germany has contributed a most valuable element to the cosmopolitan social fabric of our American republic, which has had much to gain and nothing to lose from this source. Among those of German birth and ancestry who have attained to success and prominence in connec- tion with business affairs in the City of In- dianapolis is August M. Kuhn, who is known as a citizen of sterling character, marked. public spirit and utmost loyalty and who has won definite success through his own well directed efforts, so that he stands today as one of the essentially representative business men of the captial city, where he has varied and important capitalistic interests and busi- ness associations, and where he is held in unqualified esteem by all who know him.

August M. Kuhn was born in the king- dom of Bavaria. Germany, on the 11th of

May, 1846, and is a son of Jacob and Bar- bara (Klundt) Kuhn, both of whom passed their entire lives in Bavaria, where the fa- ther devoted many years to the pedagogic profession, having been an able and honored teacher in the schools of his land and having held various offices of distinctive public trúst, including that of city clerk. He was a man of fine intellectuality and ever held a secure place in popular confidence and esteem. Jacob Kuhn's father was a successful agri- culturist and also a manufacturer of wine, having extensive vineyards and also operat- ing a distillery. Jacob Kuhn died in 1871, at the age of fifty-six years, his loved and devoted wife having been summoned to the life eternal in 1862, at which time she was thirty-seven years of age. Her father like- wise was an agriculturist by vocation and was one of the substantial citizens of his section of the fine old kingdom of Bavaria. Both Jacob and Barbara (Klundt) Kuhn were devout and consistent members of the Lutheran Church, in whose faith they reared their two children,-Johanna, who is the widow of Peter Iwig, of Indianapolis, where she still maintains her home, and August M., who is the immediate subject of this review.

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Greater Indianapolis : the history, the industries, the institutions, and the people of a city of homes, Part 104

Author: Dunn, Jacob Piatt, 1855-1924. cn Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Company Number of Pages: 972

Author: Dunn, Jacob Piatt, 1855-1924. cn
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 972