USA > Indiana > Fayette County > History of Fayette County, Indiana : her people, industries and institutions > Part 51
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1912-Grand avenue, Seventh to Eleventh, 6,733.03 square yards; Wash- ington avenue, Seventh to Fifth, 1,615: Milton pike, Eighth to Eighteenth, 10,500; Ninth street, Milton pike to Eastern, 4,365.12; Seventh street, West- ern to Eastern, 4,400.
1913-Grand avenue, Eleventh to Seventeenth, 8,459.46; Central avenue, South First to Fourth and Seventh to Virginia, 17,265 ; Eastern avenue, South
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First to Eleventh, 16,771.87; Eastern avenue, Eleventh to Twelfth, 1,828.51 ; Eighth street, Milton pike to Eastern. 3.338.74; Sixth street, 7,444.55; Fifth street, 2,700; Fourth street, 1,035.47 ; Grace alley, 350.
1914-Third street, 4, 155.94 ; Second street, 724.39: First street, 742.50; Western avenue, 4,447.59; Mount street, 3,931.84; Illinois street, 500; Eighteenthi street, 3,268.87; Summit street, 1,730; alley between Seventh and Eighth, 625.
1915-Grand avenue, 635. 11 ; Rieman alley; entire alley, 469.33.
1916-Grand avenue, Seventeenth to Twenty-second, 9,742.69; Indiana avenue, Thirteenth to Twenty-first, 12,079.08; Virginia avenue, Fifteenth to Twenty-first, 11,020.8; alley between Eleventh and Twelfth, 1,517.18.
The city now ( 1917) has 1,300,000 square feet of cement sidewalks, practically every sidewalk in the city being so improved. The curbing and guttering totals 200,000 lineal feet.
POLICE DEPARTMENT.
The present police department of the city of Connersville dates from May 21, 1888. During the mayoralty of James McIntosh the question was first agitated and the council finally passed an ordinance establishing a regular police department. The first marshal under the ordinance was William Cotton. The ordinance gave the mayor power to appoint a marshal and one or more police- men, and the mayor still exercises this power. At the present time the depart- ment consists of a chief and six patrolmen.
City prisoners are kept in a cell in the town hall pending a trial, but if a jail sentence is given the prisoners are incarcerated in the county jail. The mayor presides over all police-court proceedings. There is no regular time for sessions of the mayor's court, the sessions being held as cases may arise. The prosecution in the city court is in the hands of the circuit, prosecutor, James A. Clifton, and his deputy, Frank M. Edwards. In 1916 there were two hundred and five cases tried by the mayor. The amount received in fines amounted to seven hundred and seventy-eight dollars and fifty cents.
J. R. Gillespie has been chief of the department since 1914. The annual salary of the office is eight hundred dollars. The patrolmen receive sixteen dollars and fifty cents a week. The headquarters of the department is in the town hall. The city has no patrol wagon, motorcycle men or mounted police of any kind, although there is considerable agitation at the present time to add a patrol wagon.
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TELEPHONES.
To move apace with the industrial and civic development of Conners- ville : to provide ready means of communication other than by mail, became a problem which could only be solved by the installation of telephone service.
In 1882, James H. Fearis, of Connersville, started the Bell telephone exchange, which was the one hundred and eighth station opened in the United States up to the year mentioned. Fearis continued to operate the exchange for two and one-half years, at the end of which time it was sold to the Cen- tral Union Telephone Company of Chicago. At the time of the transfer eighty subscribers were using the telephone service. The rates in those days were, for business lines, three and one-half dollars a month, and residence service was fixed at two and one-half dollars. Following the change in ownership, W. Everett Lowe was in charge of the local station for some years.
In 1895, L. Andrew Frazee, of Connersville, organized the Connersville Telephone Company, which has since been in continuous operation, and has no local competitors. The rates are, for business service, two and one-half dol- lars per month, for residence, two dollars, and party-wire service one and one- quarter dollars per month. The company provides facilities for long-distance service, and three toll lines are also in operation. The entire plant is owned and managed by Mr. Frazee, who. in 1917, installed new equipment costing thirty thousand dollars and acquired a new location on Sixth street. At the end of 1916 the company had one thousand six hundred subscribers. In December, 1916, the public service commission of Indiana was asked by .cer- tain subscribers of the company to review its existing rates, their com- plaint being that the present charges were excessive. The commission ordered a reduction of the rates, which the owner either had to accept or appeal to the courts. Feeling that the decision of the commission was unfair, Frazee applied to the courts for relief. The decision of the court resulted in the matter being referred back to the public service commission, whose further action had not been reported when this work went to press.
CEMETERIES.
As old as Connersville itself was the first place of burial, which was located on the river bank opposite Third street, and extending above and below. For burial purposes this place was not used much after 1828, the
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encroachments of the river making it necessary to remove the graves and abandon the grounds. The water now passes through what was the first city of the dead.
The second grave-yard was laid out on Western avenue, now the site of the Methodist Episcopal parsonage, and was used until the growth of the town necessitated another change. The third site, a part of the present beauti- ful cemetery, was located in 1851. It comprises about fourteen acres of land laid out and dotted over with choice evergreens, shade trees and many ele- gant and costly monuments of marble and granite.
On October 8, 1851, ten acres of the cemetery were purchased by the corporation of Silas Pumphrey, Sr, and laid out into lots the following December-it being the north part of the present grounds. The greater number of the bodies interred in the other grave-yards were removed to this cemetery. The latter has been under the care and management of the town and city authorities from the beginning. A former superintendent, R. C. Bratten, held the position for twenty years. Owing to this ground offering no further space for interment, it became necessary to acquire a new site.
In 1916 Manford E. Dale donated sixty-six acres, fifty-five acres of which is laid out for cemetery purposes; the value of the land was $7,500. Following Dale's benefaction, Daniel Hankins built a chapel, known as Hankins chapel, in memory of his father and mother, and his son provided the interior furnishings. The present cemetery, known as "Daleview," is located one mile west of Connersville. The association is called the Dale Cemetery Association and consists of twenty of the most prominent citizens, chosen by the lot owners. More than twenty thousand dollars has been expended by the association and much by private parties, the Ansted mau- soleum alone costing ten thousand dollars. M. E. Dale is president; E. W. Ansted, vice-president ; R. N. Elliott, secretary and treasurer, and W. M. Gregg, superintendent. A beautiful stone road leads to this cemetery.
INDUSTRIES OF CONNERSVILLE.
Any effort to paint a picture of Connersville and Fayette county as it appears at the present time involves the artist in difficulty. Simplicity seems to have disappeared. The thousand and one things which we demand in our daily life of today were not known a hundred years ago. The farmer of the early days of Fayette county, were he to return to one of the well improved farms in Fayette county in 1917, would hardly be able to recog-
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GROCERIES
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FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION AND BALLOON ASCENSION, CONNERSVILLE, 1896.
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nize any of the implements used by his grandson. He would see the simple corn knife replaced by a corn harvester; his cradle by a binder ; his flail by a threshing machine. His wife would likewise see in the kitchen of her grand- daughter a score of utensils which would provoke her curiosity ; she would hardly see any relation between the fireless cooker and the old fireplace in which she cooked her corn pone.
Truly the times have changed, but we would not go back to the simple days of our forefathers if we could. We would not exchange the electric lights for the old tallow dip; nor would we trade our automobiles for the old ox cart. In another chapter the story has been told of the life of the people of the county as they lived in other days. There are certain aspects of life which cannot be expressed in words. It is possible to set forth the material life of the county-its schools, churches and industrial life are matters of record : the civil life of the county with all its ramifications is easy to express. There are some things which resolve themselves into figures, while there are others which cannot be measured with a foot rule. It is easy to set forth the number of churches and school houses in the county, but it is a much more difficult thing to express the religious life of the people or show the concrete results flowing from the public school. In other words, there is such a thing as the morale of the people which is difficult of definition and it is only by the use of most general terms that this can be expressed.
THE ROMANCE OF FIGURES.
Material progress, as has been stated, may be given more definite expression. The story of one phase of Fayette county's life as it appeared in 1916 is revealed in the annual report of the county recorder to the state statistician. The person who can invest figures with a degree of imagina- tion should be able to glance through this report and see in it definite facts concerning the people of the county. Here, for instance, is a page covered with figures and yet on this one page is a hint of the thriftiness of the people. It tells of the liquidation or the reduction of mortgages on farm loans and when the reader sees the figures $286.099, he will understand that this amount has been applied to the indebtedness incurred by people of the county in former years; in other words, these figures in a measure indicate the thrifti- ness of the people. Bank deposits are another indication of thrift.
The annual report of the recorder gives, in a general manner, an idea of how the people of Fayette county are running their business, what they have made during the year, what they have spent, the debts they have paid
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off, and the amount of money they have spent for education, for roads, for bridges, for a thousand and one things. There are other official reports of the county which set forth the number of cases tried in the courts of the county and their disposition and from this the careful student of social condi- tions may draw his conclusions as to whether the county is getting better or worse. There are reports giving the number of marriages, the number of divorces, the number of children born and there may be traced something of the home lives of the people of the county.
Other unofficial reports help to explain how the county lives. The many churches of the county issue annual statistical statements to their vari- ous national organizations. A study of these reports will show how many people belong to the church and just how many united with it during the previous year ; they will also show the number enrolled in the Sunday school and the other auxiliary church organizations. Thus if the "goodness" of a people can be expressed in figures, it is possible to draw certain definite deduc- tions by a study of these church statistics.
In other words a study of the statistics of the county will reveal the life of its people in a striking manner. Even so prosaic a statement as a delinquent tax list tells an interesting story. But the people of today arc so much concerned with their daily efforts to provide for themselves and those depending upon them that they do not have the time to take a retro- spective view of the life about them. As someone has stated, we keep our nose so close to the grindstone that the dust gets in our eyes and obscures our vision, thereby rendering us unable to see what is going on around us. There is certainly more than a modicum of truth in this statement.
A ·HALF-MILLION-DOLLAR STORY.
The following brief summary, compiled from the county recorder's annual report to the state statistician for 1916, shows in a concise manner a number of interesting facts pertaining to the county. It might be, called a half-million-dollar story.
Deeds to the total value of eight hundred and forty-eight thousand one hundred and twenty dollars were taken and entered of record throughout the county.
During 1916 those residing outside the city gave mortgages on farms to the amount of $337,043 and in the city, and towns, mortgages amounting to $397,371. To the casual observer this would look as though but little progress was made, the debts incurred nearly equaling the amount of prop- erty acquired.
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But this is the item that counts: "Satisfactions," that is, the liquida- tion or reduction of mortgages on farm loans amounted during the year to $286,099. On city or town property the satisfactions amounted to $212,517, a net liquidation of $537.403. Subtract this from the total amount of mort- gages for the year which includes chattel mortgages and school fund and liens totaling $812,220 and the net indebtedness of the county is $274,817.
On the other side of the ledger, however, loans represented in deeds up to $848,120 were taken. Deducting the net indebtedness from this shows a net gain in real estate wealth of well above half a million dollars.
As showing that the people have traveled far since the days when the state school fund, in the hands of the county auditor, was the main source from whence farmers and some others could obtain loans, the 1916 report shows that during all of 1916, but $8,225 was borrowed from that fund! When it is added, as the report shows, that "satisfaction" of more than the amount borrowed, or $9,400 was made to that fund, it is difficult to see how the state school fund can be a revenue producer for prosperous counties like Fayette.
The filing of liens, on buildings principally, swelled the total amount of the mortgage total by $11,450. Nearly half of this, or $5,348, had been satisfied. Another item increased that total by $57,331, of which $29,039, or more than half, has been paid. This is chattel mortgages, largely on horses and household furniture, and in no way has to do with real estate property or transactions.
The report indicates many deals in real estate during the past year. The giving of mortgages on real property is not an indication of stringency, but the reverse. Men venture only, as a rule, when they are hopeful and see inducements for venturing in the near future.
This report of the recorder includes, of course, the city of Connersville which is an integral part of the financial history of the county, but it is necessary to treat more of the city in detail.
CONNERSVILLE'S PECULIAR QUALIFICATIONS.
If John Conner could return in 1917 to the city where he had his little trading post in 1817 he would be more surprised at the transformation which one hundred years had wrought than Rip Van Winkle was when he awoke from his long slumber. His saw-mill and grist-mill have long since disap- peared; the old blockhouse has met a similar fate; the Indian has long since been gathered to the Happy Hunting Ground. The Connersville of today
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has but a landmark or two to link it with the Connersville of Conner's time ; probably the old Buckley house and a part of Heinemann's grocery store are the only two buildings in the city in 1917 upon which the eyes of the founder of the city ever rested.
As has been said in another chapter John Conner arrived about 1808 or 1809 on the site of the city which now bears his name. It has been said that there were only three houses in the village in 1816 and there certainly were not more than eight or ten at the time the little village was selected as . the county seat in the early spring of 1819. The village grew slowly until the forties and then with the promise of the canal it increased by leaps and bounds. The story of its growth has been, told elsewhere, but as it is a part of this particular story to tell why it has become the city it is today it is necessary to say a word in this connection about its history within the past few decades.
The size of any urban community depends on a number of factors, chief of which is its location. A New York or a Chicago cannot come into existence at any place-not even in Fayette county. Proximity to the sea or to a navigable lake or river is always a large contributing factor in the growth of a city. A central, inland location, such as is enjoyed by Indi- anapolis, contributes to a healthy growth. And there are other factors which enter into the development of a city.
The question naturally arises in this connection-What are the peculiar qualifications possessed by Connersville which has made it the city it is in 1917? It is not on the sea, neither on a lake nor on a navigable river- even the old canal is gone. There does not appear any good geographical reason to account for its prosperity. True, it is in the center of the county, and a county-seat town ; and it is also true that it has excellent railroad con- nections, but these facts, contributory though they may be to the city's growth, do not sufficiently explain its prominence. Some cities seem to possess every natural advantage which a city ought to have, and then they do not grow; while, on the other hand, other places seem to lack these same essentials to urhan growth and yet prosper without them.
And such a place is Connersville. Possessing few of the essentials which go to make a city, yet it has grown to a thriving municipality of ten thousand. Some one has said that God made the country and man made the town. Thus it is with Connersville. The questioner who seeks after the underlying causes of the present prosperity of the city is told that the credit belongs to a very few men. A study of other municipalities reveals the fact that a half dozen wideawake and progressive men can overcome
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seemingly insurmountable obstacles and make a prosperous city despite geographical disadvantages. And such men Connersville possesses.
EARLY INDUSTRIES OF THE CITY.
The founder of the city of Connersville was a good business man and it is to such men as Conner that the city owes its present condition. For many years prior to the Civil War, and even for some time after that struggle, the main industries of the town were milling, pork-packing and woolen manufacturing. Today two of these industries have disappeared entirely and the other, milling, is only a minor industry. The milling industry is the only one which has been in continuous operation since before the Civil War, the manufacture of blowers dating from 1860. Of the score of industrial plants now in operation practically all of them have come into existence within the past thirty years. Until the nineties the manufacture of vehicles and furniture constituted the chief industries in addition to the milling and blower industries. The three largest industries of the Civil War period- milling, pork-packing and woolen manufacturing-gave way to the manufac- ture of buggies and carriages and furniture in the eighties. The woolen-mill burned in the seventies and was never rebuilt.
The extensive flour-mill of A. B. Conwell on Eastern avenue was erected in 1846, shortly after the completion of the canal, and had a capacity of manufacturing up to two hundred barrels of flour a day. It continued to operate until 1866, when its waterpower was destroyed by the great freshet of that year. Later the Triple Sign Company occupied the building until it burned. A part of the foundation of Conwell's mill is still standing.
Pork-packing engaged the attention of a number of citizens of Con- nersville for about twenty-five years following the construction of the canal. Several extensive factories for the carrying on of that industry in its various branches were erected, and hog-slaughtering and pork-packing ranked with the leading industries. A. B. Conwell & Sons, George W. Frybarger, Daniel Hankins, Holton, Simpson & Company, Caldwell, McCollem & Company and the Fayette County Hog-slaughtering & Pork-packing Association, were among the firms engaged in the industry. The killing in 1846 amounted to 6,000 hogs; in 1856 about 11,000 were slaughtered and packed by the firms of A. B. Conwell & Sons and J. Holton & Company. The price paid was $6 a hundred. In 1852 Conwell & Sons killed for Daniel Hankins, and by all firms there were over 25,000 hogs slaughtered in the town. In 1863 the firm of Caldwell & Company slaughtered upward of 13,000 hogs, the average being 242 pounds each.
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The Fayette County Hog-slaughtering & Pork-packing Association was organized in February, 1862, the capital being $18,000. Bezaled Beeson was president and James Heron secretary of the association. They took over the old Frybarger building, where the industry was carried on while they remained in business. Pork-packing ceased in 1874, Caldwell & Company being the last firm engaged in the business, killing in 1872-3 upwards of 28,000 hogs.
The pork-packing houses and large flour-mills required thousands of barrels, most of which were manufactured in the town, thus creating another industry of considerable importance. This branch of trade was begun in 1845 by Valentine Michael between Fifth and Sixth streets and carried it on until 1864, when John Uhl succeeded him, the latter doing an extensive business up to 1870, when he was followed by Henry Weitsel. Uhl, while in the business, turned out about 18,000 barrels a year. Florentine Michael, a son of Valentine, started barrel-making in 1865, in the southern part of the city and produced some 12,000 barrels a year.
The tanning business was active from the very beginning of the village of Connersville. Conwell, Reese and others were engaged in the industry for many years. In the early forties Brown & Burdrant operated a tannery. Later, the yard passed into the hands of John L. Gilchrist, who continued the industry for some years. About 1883 Myer Brothers. started a tanyard on a small scale, but the business soon became unprofitable and was discon- tinued.
BEGINNING OF THE BLOWER PLANT.
William F. Gephart, of Dayton, Ohio, came to Connersville about 1846 and erected a large brick building in which he installed a stove foundry. The building later became a part of the Roots blower plant. Gephart con- tinued to manufacture stoves for about ten years and then sold out to Will- iam J. Hankins. Prior to selling out, however, Gephart had leased a part of the building to John Ensley, of Richmond, who began the manufacture of threshing-machines, steam-engines and other kinds of machinery. Ensley built up a profitable business and about 1855 associated himself with James Mount and Josiah Mullikin, and the firm at once erected a large brick build- ing which is still standing on Eastern avenue near the Cincinnati, Indian- apolis & Western Railroad station. The new firm continued in the manufac- ture of machinery, but shortly afterward Ensley retired and the firm became Erwin, Mount & Mullikin. The new owners disposed of the business about 1866 to Wetherald & Sons, although prior to the disposition of the plant in
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that year Mullikin, about 1860, had rented the foundry building, built in 1846 by Gephart, which had later been sold to Hankins. Mullikin continued to manufacture machinery for a short time, disposing of the plant to the firm of E. & E. L. Mullikin. The latter firm continued the business until the close of 1863, when it was discontinued.
The building was sold in January, 1864, to P. H. & F. M. Roots, who at once began the manufacture of a rotary-force blast blower. The firm has continued under this name down to the present time, although the brothers, Philander H. and Francis M., have long since passed away. The blower was patented by the Roots brothers in 1859 and was manufactured in machine shops in the city on a small scale until 1864 when they went into the building before mentioned. The brothers took out several patents on the blower, being granted not less than fifteen between 1860 and 1870. Since that time a great many more patents have been taken out.
It should be stated that the Roots blower was the first blower in the world and that all blowers which have been made since 1860 have been based upon patents and models developed by this company. The products of the company are shipped to all parts of the world. They are found in Canada, Mexico and South America; throughout Europe, South Africa, the continent of Asia and in the islands of Japan and Australia. Roots blowers are found wherever manufacturing on a large scale is to be found. The pro- ducts of the company are catalogued under a wide variety of names, but they may all be summed up under the general title of rotary positive-pressure machinery. They include blowers for foundries, smelters, oil furnaces, mine ventilation, pneumatic service, steel converters and the like: gas exhausts for foul gas pumping service, high-pressure booster service, corrosive gas handling, etc .; water pumps for cooling towers, condensors, irrigation, etc .; vacuum pumps for heating systems, condensers, sugar-mills, paper-mills, vacuum cleaning, etc .: Acme blowers for oil furnaces, forges, tuyere irons, laundries, gas appliances, fire beds, etc. ; Acme vacuum pumps for hotels, clubs and private homes; flexible couplings for power transmission; gov- ernors, valves for wing gates, gas valves, by-pass valves, quick opening blast gates, etc., etc.
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