USA > Indiana > Marion County > Indianapolis > History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana > Part 80
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HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.
old stand. He removed it in a few years to the old Carlisle House, a three-story frame palace, built west of West Street in 1848 for a fashionable hotel, but would not pass for it, and there it collapsed a few years ago. About the time the war broke out Frank Wright established an ale-brewery on Blake Street, a little north of the Landers pork-house, which con- tinued in successful operation about twelve years, but finally succumbed to the superior attractiveness of lager and suspended. The early breweries made nothing but what was called strong beer. It was neither ale nor lager, and none of it is made now, so that it is hard to deseribe it to one who knows nothing of it experimentally. Mr. Wright's brewery was the first to make ale, and Mr. C. F. Schmidt's, since be- come famous under the management of his widow and sons as Schmidt's brewery, was the first to make lager, at least in any merchantable quantity or con- dition.
Mr. Schmidt began brewing lager in 1858-59, on the site where the present huge establishment stands, filling a whole block south of McCarty to Wyoming, at the head of Alabama Street. A recent statement says the original brewery building remains, two stories high, 93 by 40 feet, with a two-and-a-half story brick icc-house 60 by 80 feet, with cellars 94 by 85 feet, and a new brick ice-house, directly on McCarty Street, able to hold 1800 tons of ice on the second story, with cellars two stories in depth, con- structed with stone and iron ; a stable one and a half stories in height and 50 by 120 fect in dimensions; a two-story bottling-house 60 by 130 feet in dimen- sions. An additional building 40 by 115 feet in size, is occupied as a malt-house ; and in the various depart- ments a force of 70 hands is employed and 50 horses with 30 wagons are required to deliver the beer to city customers. The bottling department was started as recently as 1881, yet about thirty barrels are bottled daily. The house owns extensive ice-ponds north- west of the city and large ice-houses erected there, not less than 10,000 tons of ice being annually re- quired in the business. The sales for the year 1882 reached nearly 60,000 barrels. The cellars and vaults are among the finest in the West, and have an aggregate storage capacity for 25,000 barrels.
Lieber's brewery, on Madison Avenue below Mor- ris Street, backing upon the Jeffersonville Railroad, is a considerably younger establishment than the pre- ceding, but is little inferior in the extent of its busi- ness, and notably in the character of its product. The present proprietor, Peter Lieber, is the founder of the business, and its success is the result of his energy, enterprise, and honorable dealing. The same may be said of Maus' brewery, on the Fall Creek race, near the intersection of New York and Agnes Streets. It was established by Mr. Caspar Maus, father of the present managers, and by him pushed to a point of marked success, when he died, leaving his sons to carry on the enterprise with the same energy and prudence that established it, and is now constantly enlarging it. The annual product is about $200,000. The secretary of the Board of Trade says of the brewing interest of the city, " that our breweries"- there are but three that amount to anything now- " buy enoughi malt, hops, barley, icc, and other arti- cles to form a good market." And adds, " However, two of them are substituting 'cold-air machines' in- stead of icc for cooling purposes, which is said to produce much better results in every way. In short, it is safe to say that the breweries of Indianapolis have no superiors in the completeness of their ap- pointments and the quality of their products; and it is well known that they ' hold their own' in competi- tion with other cities."
Total capital of breweries for 1882. $715,000 Value of raw material used in 1882 469,500
Wages paid during 1882 103,100
Total value of manufactured product 733,000
Several breweries in other cities have agencies here, and distribute their beer as the Indianapolis breweries do.
Distilling .- Liquor-making, in spite of the abun- dance of corn, has never been an important or even considerable business in Indianapolis, and during a large part of the city's existence there has been no distillery at all in or near it. The reason of so ex- ceptional a lack of enterprise in a direction so likely to be profitable is probably to be found in the com- pletion of establishments with the great advantages of water transportation in their favor. There was a
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MANUFACTURING INTERESTS OF THE CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS.
distillery on or near the Bayou nearly as early as the Yandes mill, and its produet was as famous in the neighborhood as any present brand of strangling . liquor from "Jersey Lightning" to " Robinson County." It seems to have disappeared, though, by the time the town organization was first formed. Somewhere about the time of the completion of the Madison Railroad Capt. Cain established a dis- tillery on the northeast border of the town, outside the " donation," and kept it in operation a few years, apparently with little advantage. About the same time, or rather earlier, the late Jacob Landis built a small distillery on Pleasant Run, in connection with a mill run by water from the creek, brought by a race along the south face of the bluff at the lower end of the Catholic cemetery. Some few years later the still- house passed to the hands of some of the farmers along Pleasant Run, Mr. DeMotte or Mr. Hoefgen, but it went to decay some years ago, and there is no trace of it or the mill-race discernible now. A few years after the close of the war the Mount Jackson distillery was built, close to Little Eagle Creek, and has been run fitfully, with long intervals of suspen- sion, ever since. It has been in court sometimes, too, and recently was sold on some judicial order. It is the only distillery about the city, or that has been for twenty-five years or more. It is a business that does not enter into any report or estimate of the city's condition or trade.
Baking .- One of the settlers of 1820 was Conrad Broussell or Brussell, a baker, who, from Mr. Now- land's account, began his professional work very soon after his arrival. But it was a whole generation after the settlement before the people became so far alienated from old home fashions as to substitute the baker's loaf før the home-made biscuit and " salt- rising" bread. Of course there were some who had been accustomed to "bought bread," and on these the early baker or two of the town depended for a living. Others learned the fashion later, but it is doubtful if the baker would ever have banished home- made bread as far as he has if he had not been aided by other agencies. As the town grew aud immigra- tion increased, the domesties, who had been in the past, girls from the country, daughters of well-to-do
farmers, who wanted to live awhile in town, or rela- tives of the family who were willing to help with the house-work for their board, gave place to foreigners, who, as capable and careful as they might be, could not replace the home-trained girl of the farm. The latter had been brought up to do the family cooking with her mother since she could handle a knife or a rolling-pio, and she could do home-baking as well as the mistress. The foreign substitute could not. Thus it came that the housewife had to go back to her " dough-board" and " tray," or buy her bread ready made. This was one contributing influence. An- other and more powerful, no doubt, was the tendency of all communities to substitute paid for personal labor as they grow older and richer. At all events, the first generation of Indianapolitans ate bread made at home, as a good many do yet, and it is mainly since the war that bakers' wagons and daily visits have become as much a part of the average household lifo as the morning wash or the evening meal.
The chief product of the baker's art in old times was the " hoosier bait," as related in the general his- tory ; and " baker Brown," who kept a place on Fort Wayne Avenue, or near by, and sold gingerbread in " fip" squares, with spruce beer,-a sort of exagger- ated pop, very like "ginger ale,"-made a little money and a good deal of business reputation that would have been a fortune to him now. In later days, when the professional bread-maker came more largely into the daily supply of the town's necessities, the business fell into the hands of Germans chiefly, as it is now and has been all the time. Most of them work for daily customers and household service, but a few do a larger business, and supply markets all through the West. The oldest of these is the present Taggart establishment, which was begun soon after the completion of the Madison Railroad, by Hugh Thompson, a Scotchman, whose first establishment was on the corner of Delaware and South Streets, but subsequently removed to East Street, when it passed into the hands of the Taggart Brothers. Recently one of them bought the old and extensive South-Side bakery of Anthony Ball, on Illinois Street below the Union depot. The brothers, singly or together, do a great deal of eracker-baking. The next oldest large
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HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.
establishment is that of Parrott & Nickum, 190 and 192 East Washington Street. They succeeded Alexander Metzgar in 1862, and now occupy three floors, each 40 by 195 feet, using 100 barrels of the best flour daily. Their business amounts to $150,000 a year, and extends throughout all the adjacent States. Bryce's steam bakery, 14 and 16 East South Street, was established in 1870 by Peter F. Bryce, a level-headed, enterprising, big-hearted Scotch- man. He uses 7 wagons and 25 employés in his house, and supplies over 300 customers daily, besides selling a good deal at wholesale for shipment abroad. His consumption of flour is about two hundred bar- rels a week. Mr. Bryce represented his ward in the Council one term, and made a very efficient and pop- ular councilman. There are altogether some 51 bakeries in the city, but these are the chief estab- lishments in the wholesale trade. The Indianapolis Cracker Company may be noted as one of the leading city industries of this class.
Starch-Making .- W. F. Piel & Co.'s starch-fac- tory is located in the southwest part of Indianapolis, ou grounds bounded east and north by Dakota and Morris Streets, and bordering White River on the west, and is the only establishment of the kind in the city.
The business was established in the spring of 1867 by W. F. Piel, Edward Mueller, Charles Wischmier, and Henry Burke, who formed a partnership for the purpose, and built the Union Starch-Factory, on East New York Street, just outside the corporation limits. It was a brick building one hundred feet square, in which were included the entire works, all under one roof. Their capacity was about two hundred bushels of corn per day, and they employed from thirty to thirty-five men.
On the night of Oct. 8, 1868, the factory was totally destroyed by fire, supposed to have been the work of an incendiary. New buildings of about the same capacity were erected on the same site immedi- ately afterward, and the business was continued by the firm until October, 1872, when Messrs. Mueller, Wischmier, and Burke sold their interests to E. Birchard, who then became associated with Mr. Picl in the business, and it was carried on by them until
April, 1873, when the partnership was dissolved, and the Union Starch-Factory ceased operations.
In March, 1873, Mr. Piel formed a partnership with Mr. Andrew Erckeubrecker, of Cincinnati, under the firm-name of W. F. Piel & Co., which has since remained unchanged. The object of the partnership was to erect and operate extensive starch-works in Indianapolis, on a more eligible site than that of the old factory on New York Street. For this purpose they purchased about fifteen acres of land (a part of the property on which the works now stand), and iu June of the same year commenced the erection of two brick buildings, each one hundred and thirty by one hundred feet in size and three stories high. Tracks were laid connecting the manufactory with the main line of the Vandalia Railroad, the grading being done at the expense of Piel & Co. The works were com- pleted and put in operation in March, 1874, employ- ing eighty hands, and using five hundred bushels of corn per day in the manufacture of starch.
Since that time numerous additions have been made, and the business has been largely extended. The factory grounds-originally about fifteen acres- have been increased to about thirty-one acres by sub- sequent purchases of adjoining lands,-viz., ten acres purchased in the fall of 1878, and a lot of about six acres in 1882. A brick building one hundred by twenty-eight fect and twenty-five feet high was erected in 1875 for storage of corn. On the ten- acre tract purchased in 1878 the firm erected, in the following spring, a brick building one hundred by one hundred and thirty feet and two stories high, to be used for packing and storage purposes. Sub- sequently (1882) this building was raised to three stories in height, and in the same year a brick " run- house" was built, eighty by two hundred feet in size
Originally the motive-power of the factory was furnished by a one hundred horse steam-engine. Two smaller engines (of twenty and twenty-five horse-power respectively) have since been added, and now (November, 1883) the firm has in process of construction by a noted builder of Milwaukee a " Corliss" engine of three hundred horse-power to replace the first one. When the factory is put in
William F Tel
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MANUFACTURING INTERESTS OF THE CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS.
operation (about Jan. 1, 1884) with the new engine and some other contemplated improvements, its capacity will be two thousand five hundred bushels of corn per day, employing from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty men.
WILLIAM F. PIEL is of Prussian ancestry, and the son of Cort Henry Piel, who was born and lived in Dankarsen, near Minden, in Prussia, where he fol- lowed farming employments. He married Katarina Poppe, of Larbeck, in the same judicial district, and had children,-Mary, Henry, Frederick, Katarina, Charles, Christian, William F., and Ernst, of whom five are living. William F., who is the subject of this biographical sketch, was born at the home in Dankarsen, Prussia, on the 23d of April, 1823, and there remained during his early youth under the care of his brother Henry, who became owner of the prop- erty on the death of the mother. At the age of sev- enteen he chose the trade of a cooper, and followed it for seven years at the nominal sum of twenty-five dol- lars per year. On attaining his twenty-fourth year he decided to emigrate to America, and landing in Baltimore on the 8th of August, 1846, he came direct to Indianapolis. Here, from the time of his arrival until 1858, he followed his trade. Circum- stances influenced him at this juncture to change his business and embark in mercantile ventures. After keeping for some years a country store, with a stock adapted to general trade, he in 1867 sold out, and the same ycar began the erection of a starch-factory in the suburbs of the city, the firm by which the busi- ness was established embracing four partners. This was continued until 1872, when Mr. Piel purchased the entire interest and secured another partner, who continued for a brief period. In 1873 he formed a business connection with Andrew Erkenbrecher, of Cincinnati. Under this partnership the capacity of the factory has been greatly increased, two thousand bushels of corn being utilized in a single day. A large demand has been created for its products, one- third of the entire quantity produced being exported. Mr. Piel, by his energy, his indomitable persever- ance, and his business capacity, has placed himself in the foremost rank of manufacturers of the city of Indianapolis. In the midst of many discouragements,
and with but few aids to success, he has brought the business of starch-manufacturing to a high degree of proficiency, and made it one of the most profitable industries of the West. Mr. Piel has been to some extent identified with the interests of the city, and was, as a Democrat, in 1879-80 elected one of its aldermen, the nomination for a second term hav- ing been declined by him. In his religious prefer- ences he is a member of Trinity German Lutheran Church of Indianapolis, of which he is also a trustee. His wife and children are members of the same church. Mr. Piel was on the 29th of January, 1849, married to Elonore Wishmeyr, of Frille, near Minden, Prussia. Their children are William F. (married to Miss Lizzie Meyer), Henry C. F. (mar- ried to Mary Ostermeyer), Charles F. W. (married to Lena Stroup), Amelia M. H. (who is Mrs. Henry Melcher, of Cleveland), Lena M. M., George H. W. (deceased), and Mary L. E.
2d. Wood Products .- The next most important industry in the amount of annual product, the capital invested, and the population supported, is of lumber and wood in various forms. It would be impossible, even if it would be of interest, to indicate the origin and growth of each separate class of manufacturcs of wood, and a summary of leading points must serve. Lumber-yards, and machinery for the manufacture of lumber products, are of comparatively recent date. Pine lumber was but little used for fifteen years after the completion of the first railroad, and was not really in general use until the close of the civil war. Before that poplar was the wood for house-work, for doors, windows, weather-boarding, and shingles, and ash for floors. Both are still used, poplar chiefly for the best weather-boarding and house-finishing, and ash for finishing and flooring, but not so extensively. Within about twenty years the use of pine has become almost universal for frame-work.
Saw-mills are frequent enough for a Michigan pinery, and have been gathering in and about the city since the completion of the first railroad, or near it, but their work is mainly on the hard wood of the forests, which are so rapidly and mischievously dis- appearing. Besides the first saw-mill on Fall Creek, above Indiana Avenue, and the saw-mill attachment
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HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.
to the old steam-mill, there was no sawing done in the town or its close vicinity till the Eaglesfield Mill was built, soon after the completion of the canal and the collection of an abundant water-power in the basin of one of the old ravines, where the water- works building is now. This mill continued in operation, more or less steadily, for ten or twelve years, and was succeeded by an oil-mill. In 1861 its place was taken by the paper-mill now belonging to Salisbury & Vinton. In 1849, Mr. Kortepeter started a saw-mill on South Pennsylvania Street. In 1857, Fletcher & Wells had one on Massachusetts Avenue. Gay & Stevens had another near the Madi- son Railroad depot the same year. John F. Hill built one on East Street in 1858, which was burned the next year and rebuilt. In connection with this mill, for a time, was operated the first shingle-machine in the city. In 1858, Messrs. Off & Wishmeier ran a saw-mill in the northeast part of the city, on Rail- road Street, and Helwig & Blake had one on the canal the same year. Marsey bnilt one on New Jersey Street in 1859, and the late James H. Mc- Kernan ran one a few years on Kentucky Avenue, mainly to cut up the sycamore growth of the Me- Carty farm, for which he had contracted, and the lumber of which he used in building a large number of cheap residences in the southwestern part of the city, between the creek and the river, for workmen, who were allowed to count their rent as purchase- money, if they chose, and in a short time become owners, instead of tenants. There are now 42 lum- ber-yards and dealers in the city, some with mills for sawing, some for sash, door, and blind work, some for hard wood, and some for all kinds. Besides these, certain classes of wood manufacturers keep large lumber-yards for their own usc. Fourteen lumber-yards are reported by the secretary of the Board of Trade as doing a retail business to the amount of $1,500,000 of lumber, shingles, and laths the past year, while the whole lumber trade is esti- mated at $3,000,000.
The trade in black walnut is kept up, but not so extensively as formerly. The walnut woods of In- diana are practically exhausted. Their lumber was the best in the market. Indiana walnut commands
the best price and the greatest sale in Europe, as well as at home. And the demand for it, when it had been held of little value for a lifetime, cleared it off with a rapidity that would have delighted the pioneer, who looked upon it as a sort of natural enemy of the farmer and the corn crop. Its place is supplied now by the walnut picked up by agents in all parts of the Mississippi Valley. Col. A. D. Streight, the largest dealer in the country, whose business has averaged $500,000 a year for fifteen years, gets his walnut from Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia, but ships much of it East directly without bringing it to his yards and mills in the city. Still, there are a dozen or so other dealers that do a considerable business in this and other hard lumber. It is worth noting in this connection that wild-cherry lumber is coming into demand again. For many years after the first settlement of the city cherry was the exclusive lumber of cabinet-work and orna- mental work generally, if any of that era can be called ornamental. Bureaus, bedsteads, tables, wash- stands, and all sorts of furniture were made of cherry. And it was especially the wood of coffins till the costly burial-cases of later days superseded it. Of course the wealthier people used mahogany, sometimes rosewood, or other tropical growths, but cherry was the lumber of the American average citi- zen, and the farmer. For a generation, however, cherry has been put aside, till a recent freak of fashion has reached it. Now it is used largely for car-finishing, and is especially in demand for ebon- izing purposes, as the wood makes very fine imitation ebony.
For ordinary domestic use pine is the lumber of this region, as of the whole country. Even houses that are weather-boarded with poplar are framed of pine and shingled with pine, and the trade in it has grown to be one of the leading items of the commerce of the capital. The earliest, or among the earliest dealers in lumber, exclusively, in the city is the firm of Coburn & Jones. It was at first Coburn & Lingen- felter, and had the yard on the corner of New York and Delaware Streets in 1860. In 1862, William H. Jones, one of the early settlers of the city, and for
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MANUFACTURING INTERESTS OF THE CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS.
some years proprietor of a blacksmith-shop on the corner of Tennessee Street and Kentucky Avenue, north of the Chamber of Commerce, bought Lingen- felter's interest, and the firm has been Coburn & Jones now about twenty-two years. In 1865 the yard was removed to the present location on the block once known as "Sheets' pasture," between Georgia Street and the Union tracks, and between Tennessee and Mississippi Streets, occupying the major part of the four acres, while on the north side of Georgia Street, occupying over 100 fect on that street and as much on Kentucky Avenue, they carry on a planing- mill, and make doors, sash, and all other work usually turned out by sash-factories. They employ 40 to 45 hands, abont equally divided between the lumber- yard and the mill, and sell now about $150,000 of lumber, lath, and shingles annually, but in good seasons increase this amount by $100,000.
The yard and mill of the Dickson Brothers, at the crossing of Market Street and Pogue's Creek, is nearly as old as the preceding establishment, having been opened by the father of the brothers in 1865. It covers a whole square, employs some 30 hands, and ships abont 4,000,000 feet of hard-wood lumber a year. The floods in the creek have caused the pro- prietors a great deal of loss and trouble, and the city stands in a good position to reimburse them, or to be compelled to protect them. Wright & Hopkins, in South Alabama Street, established herc a branch of the large Buffalo house of Scatchard & Son, in 1866, dealing chiefly in hard-wood Inmber. The Cutler & Savidge Company established a branch of their Mich- igan house here in 1876, and removed to their present site, 151 to 161 South East Street, in 1882. The yard · covers an area of nearly 8 acres, and the business amounts to 10,000,000 feet a year. R. B. Emerson & Son, West Market Street, began as Emerson, Beam & Thompson in 1864. Mr. Thompson withdrew in 1867, and Mr. J. B. Emerson came in, and after Mr. Beam withdrew, in 1874, the firm became Emerson & Son. A planing-mill is connected with the yard. Marry & Co., Russell & Co., Rapert, Foster & Co., Paul, Eldridge & Co., Gladden, Cope & Hunt, Carter & Lee (Indianola), Lyons, Huey & Son, King, Long, Carmichael & Bingham, are also largely engaged in
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