USA > Indiana > Allen County > Fort Wayne > Some Fort Wayne phizes > Part 12
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20
Mr. Olds is president of the construction company bearing his name. He is a good citizen, and an album assuming to hold the portraits of Fort Wayne's leading men of affairs would come short of its avowed claim did it not contain, somewhere between its covers, a likeness of the man with the spade. Mr. Olds came to Fort Wayne as a lad of six years; at the time he appeared, Fort Wayne was but a modest village and the boy him- self was the essence of modesty. The town has long since outgrown that characteristic, but Mr. Olds is just as modest as ever. He has made a great success of his business, even in the face of the mighty competition presented by gigantic corporations operating on similar lines throughout the country, but he is not enrolled with that class of successful men who win fortune by freaks of fate. No, he hasn't taken any chances with luck, but has been content to await the slow but sure returns of the intelligent application of principles of scientific discovery to the demands of modern commercial and domestic life.
As a member of the Haydn Quartet during the many years which that organization has spread melody throughout the land of the Hoosiers, Mr. Olds is widely known outside of the ordinary circles which have won him many friends.
CHARLES S. BASH
J UST because you see Mr. Bash with a bunch of di- plomas under his arm it is no sign that he is envoy extraordinary and minister plempotentiary to any court. He is diplomatic but he is not a diplomat. A diplom.it does not deliver addresses on international doctrines in his shirt sleeves, yet all diplomats do not know how to orate. They can get pointers from observing the presi- dent of the board of trustees of the Fort Wayne public schools.
Charley Bash wore his first shirt in Roanoke, Indiana, just a few miles west of Fort Wayne. This was tilty- one years ago. He wore shirts there one year, then came to Fort Wayne. The dots on the shirt he wore when the snap-shot was taken of him are not done in waltz time. They are polka. When the shirt gets older they will be in "rag." He got into the habit of cooling off in hot political debates and he does not desire to cul- tivate any other habit. He elegantly and eloquently clothes his political arguments. He is one of the best posted men in Indiana on the political issues which are of interest to the business community of the central west. He is an ardent Republcan and is a power in local, district and state politics. His election to the Fort Wayne school board was not only a recognition of his services but also an honor bestowed on account of his thorough training for the position. He was a mem- ber of the high school class of 1872 and he delights in pushing the schools to the front. He will be an earnest supporter of the new high and manual training school.
He is vice-president and general manager of the large wholesale grain and commission house of S. Bash & Company and is interested in numerous other important business ventures.
163
DAVID S. ECKERT
AFTER THE GAME, SMOKE "39"
A LL last season it was a real pleasure to attend the Central League polo teams, if only to see Dave Eckert smile. He usually stood at the door to accept the tickets and was so happy that he said "'thank you" to everybody just as sweetly as he knew how. Even to those who presented "comps" he made the same glad remark. Dave wasn't thinking about the stream of cur- rency pouring in through the ticket window. Oh, no! He was happy because he knew he had at last found for the people of Fort Wayne a brand of sport which every- body enjoyed, and that he had succeeded in getting together one of the fastest bunches of athletes that ever carried a pennant fastened to a crooked stick. Dave has decided to do the same thing this year, and if he provides as good a quality of clean sport as he did last winter the people will certainly save up their pennies and nickels and dimes and hurry over to deposit the same in his capacious hands. But this is only a side issue of Dave's. He has other important affairs.
The golden days of the old Forty-niners are now only memories of the dim and distant past. But the golden days of Dave Eckert, the "Thirty-niner." are things of the lively present. No one who has learned anything about Fort Wayne's cigar manufactories, past and pres- ent, needs to be told that the ** 39" cigar is one of the things which has made Fort Wayne famous. Of course. the Eckert factory turns out other brands of popular "smokes," but this one has had a good name since the Eckert factory was established, thirty-five years ago, by Dave's father, the late John C. Eckert.
Dave is a Fort Wayne boy by birth. While yet a lad he entered his father's employ. He succeeded to the management and has done his work well.
164
WILLIAM M. GRIFFIN
W E asked Mr. Griffin to take off his goggles long enough to let us make this little snapshot. The south wind kindly removed his cap so we also get a view of his broad expanse of brow as he glides over the as- phaltum. You notice we don't say he glides noiselessly; far from it, Even if his motor car failed to make a sound, the rapidity with which he is whizzed through the at- mosphere would produce a sound very like the swish of a blacksnake in the hand of Legree. When made up for one of his two hundred and eighty-seven mile spurts into the country, Mr. Griffin strongly resembles a deep sea diver. He hasn't his full rigging on in this picture. Mr. Griffin has an incurable attack of automobilensis, and has thus far refrained from trying any of the rem- edies for it prepared by the medical institute for which he is the secretary. He thinks his is a hopeless case. but fears that a cure might be found.
Mr. Griffin is a Hoosier by birth, his voice being first heard by the people of the thriving village of Brimfield, in Noble county. He frequently went fishing for shiners in the Elkhart river, and engaged in the elevating pas- time of hitching ticktacks to the neighbors' casements, but managed to find time to absorb the vast quantity of information offered by the schools of his native town. He later taught in the country schools of Noble county. At the time the Spanish-American trouble came on, he was at Kalamazoo, Michigan, where he joined Company C. of the Thirty-second Michigan Volunteers and en- joyed a six months' vacation in the south. After his return, he took a position with the State Medical Insti- tute, of Fort Wayne-now the J. W. Kidd Company- and is at present secretary of that large concern.
165
DEED
RECO, 'D
JOHN DREIBELBISS
IF we should tell you that a cow brought John Dreibel- biss to Fort Wayne, and then stop without telling the remaining portion of the story, it wouldn't be at all fair: so we will proceed immediately to relate the rest of the tale of the cow. Some folks were brought to Fort Wayne by a team of oxen, and one might think at first that this was the method employed to transport Mr. Dreibelbiss to our city: hut not so. The story is of another sort.
John Dreibelbiss was born here in 1853. His first employer was Mason Long, who was then in the grocery business. When he reached the age of fourteen he entered the employ of the White Fruit House, at that time conducted by the elder J. B. White. At the age of eleven he went to Chicago to work for a wholesale tea house, and right there's where the the cow story begins. In 1872, Mrs. O'Leary's bovine quadruped kicked over the lamp which started the Chicago fire. The conflagration swept away the tea house where John Dreibelbiss had been accustomed to draw his salary on Saturday nights; it also swept the young man back to Fort Wayne. So, as we remarked before, it was a cow that brought John Dreibelbiss to Fort Wayne to make his home.
He was employed at farming and floriculture for some time and then for six years was a grocery clerk. Twenty years ago, he began the tedious, yet important, labor of perfecting a new method of working up abstracts ot title. His system is a model, covering every inch of ground in Allen county so completely that its entire history may be laid bare in a few moments. Mr. Dreibelbiss is the author of a work entitled "Start Right." which unfolds to the uninformed in entertaining narrative style the intricate details of the abstract business.
CHARLES E. ARCHER
H ERE is an Archer who seems to have become expert in striking the bullseye of the target of success every time he has made the attempt. At any rate, if he made failures along with his successes, they did not discourage him. but rather intensified his earnestness and sharpened the keenness of his desire to become more expert with the bow of endeavor and the arrow of enter- prise.
Mr. Archer's first experience in the line of work allied to his present business was during his connection with the Fort Wayne Gazette with which he was employed as circulator. While performing his duties in that capa- city he got the idea that a job printing office which ca- tered only to the finest class of patronage, doing a high grade of work for a correspondingly substantial price. would be a welcome addition to the list of commercial establishments of Fort Wayne. With that idea in mind, he purchased the job department of the Gazette, and continued for ten years to operate it in accordance with the views he had previously formed, at the end of which time the Archer Printing Company was formed. With the same idea before it, the new company started in a comparatively small way, but before much time had elapsed it found its business so enlarged that a much more commodious building was needed. The present im- mense factory is the result. Sixty persons are given employment, and the annual business of the Archer Printing Company now amounts to over SIoo,ooo. A large share of its output is in the shape of fine cata- logues, booklets, periodicals and the finer grades of printing. A complete electrotyping and engraving plant and bindery are operated in connection. Its patrons are scattered all over the union and through the medium of this concern the good name of Fort Wayne is spread broadcast. Such is the enterprise that has blossomed from the ideas and labors of Charles E. Archer.
167
Marriage Licence
0
WILLIAM A. JOHNSON
W HEN the ice breaks up in Delta Lake and the win- ter's snows in Swinney Park fade away before the gentle sunshine of the early spring, the crocus lifts its delicate head to bow a perfumed welcome to the ver- dure that appears as if by magic to spread itself over the landscape. The welcome of the crocus is cheery and sweet, but it isn't in it with the welcome that County Clerk Johnson carries with him wherever he may wan- der. Mr. Johnson has a face that seems to be built for smiling purposes.
Of course, there are times when he smiles more than at other times. In the sketch we see him handing out a document designed to bring gladness to the hearts of the recipients. Since he took his office in the court house January 1, 1903, he has passed out about 1,450 marriage licenses, and from this statement you may get a slight Idea ot the amount of bliss he is dispensing through this one channel alone.
Mr. Johnson was born in Eel River township. When a boy he attended the country school and did chores. He also went fishing in Eel River and sometimes hauled out a good-eel. Thus he kept busy until he was old enough to go to Churubusco to enter the high school. He was graduated therefrom, and for some time engaged in teaching school.
Mr. Johnson ran for the office of trustee of Eel River township, and, although the community was then strongly Republican and he just as strongly a Democrat, he won out ahead of his opponent. Such incidents tell whether or not a prophet is without honor in his own country. For six years he was a member of the Allen County Democratic Central Committee from his township. He was nominated in 1902 by his party as their candidate for county clerk and was chosen by a pleasing majority vote. Since making his home in Fort Wayne Mr. Johnson has added a good many names to his long list of friends.
168
DANIEL B. NINDE
M R. NINDE, Republican candidate for prosecuting attorney, is stuck on the law business. The picture shows him in that interesting attitude.
Dan has always liked Fort Wayne. This fondness began even earlier than those good days when every barefoot boy in the school room was more adept in the practice of wireless telegraphy than Marconi can ever hope to be. Do you-we are now speaking to those who once had hoyhood days-remember that thrilling message which consisted of the uplifted hand with only two fingers standing up stretched wide apart which flashed the exciting inquiry: "Goinswimminwithus?" And then you looked to see if the teacher was watching and then hobhed your head, returning the answer: ** Betcherlife!" Well, it was in those good old days that Dan Ninde learned to love Fort Wayne so well. He left the high school prepared to enter the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. He was appointed a cadet in 1887. Four years ago he graduated close to the head of his class and everything looked rosy for a bright naval career. But Dan thought of Fort Wayne, and remembered that Uncle Sam's boats are too big to sail the Maumee. Therefore he resigned and decided to become a lawyer-a Fort Wayne lawyer. He attended Harvard one year, by way of preparation, at the end of which time he returned home and studied law in the office of his father, the late Judge L. M. Ninde. Then he went to Ann Arbor and took a complete course in the law department of the University of Michigan, gradu- ating in 1895. He has been in practice here ever since, excepting during a brief period when he resided in Colorado.
Mr. Ninde was largely instrumental in the organ- ization of the Fraternal Assurance Society of America, with headquarters in Fort Wayne. and holds the office of supreme chancellor of the order.
160
ORA E. SEANEY
M R. SEANEY is certainly a brave young man. While the rest of us are howling about the ladies invad- ing our sphere- while we are kicking vehemently be- cause they don't attend solely to their duties as home- makers and followers of the trades and professions for which we declare Nature has designed them-what does Mr. Seaney do? Why, he simply gets even by breaking into their sphere, not temporarily, in order to cause them to mend their ways, but permanently. He's there to stay. He's the " man milliner," and as such is known throughout the country as well as on the other side of the pond where he stirred up things on his visit to Paris in 1897.
Mr. Seaney was born at Ridgeville, Indiana, and at- tended the public schools there.
His first employment was in a grocery store where he showed his ability at decorating the windows artis- tically with celery, radishes, roasting ears, squashes. canned tomatoes, pippins, ruta-hagas and holly branches. It was his first lesson in trimming and it attracted at- tention. He then demonstrated his ability and taste by adorning the bonnets of his relatives and friends and soon, in 1888 was holding a place in a large millinery store at Richmond. Then he went to Cincinnati, New York and elsewhere, finally coming to Fort Wayne, where he has remained since 1890. The present large retail business was established thirteen years ago at NO. 1114 Calhoun street and continued there until the summer of the present year, when it was removed to No. 924. the same street. Mr. Seaney has written several books on millinery and is a contributor to all the large millinery trade journals.
The picture shows him at work on a bonnet for Mrs. Leslie Carter which was presented on her recent visit to Fort Wayne. Mrs. W. J. Bryan's "silver cross" turban, made by Mr. Seaney in 1896, is one of the hats which has attracted much attention.
ASA L. KNIGHT
T HE man who selected this gentleman to look after the interests of the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company in this section of the world must have just finished reading "When Knighthood Was in Flower." We are led to this conclusion from the fact that while the company's local business tried hard to burst forth into the beauteous blossoms whose petals are silver certificates, whose stamens are dollar signs, and whose foliage is composed of greenbacks-it did not succeed in so doing until Mr. Knight came to give it proper care and nurture. This blossom, then, might, in a way-a far-fetched way, perhaps-be called a Knight-blooming serious affair.
To be more explicit, this company has been repre- sented in Fort Wayne off and on for the past thirty- eight years with indifferent success on the part of the several gentlemen who have had its interests in charge. Mr. Knight took the district agency in 1902, and since then he has written nearly twice as much business as was done for the company during the preceding years of effort in this city.
Mr. Knight came to Fort Wayne in the autumn of 1882. He took a complete course in the International Business College, and graduated in June, 1898. At that time Weil Brothers & Company were in need of a first- class office man and he located with them for fifteen months, going from there to the employ of the Belden- Larwill Electric Company. Then he became interested in the insurance business and began work for one of the old line companies, later taking the agency referred to above. He has leased a suit in the "Rurode" office building to be erected at the corner of West Berry and Harrison streets. He says he expects within the next year to be producing an average of two hundred thousand dollars insurance a year.
171
A. ROGGEN
M R. ROGGEN is a photographer. If you call at his studio and ask if you may have your picture taken, he will give you his answer in the negative. Nev- ertheless, the picture will be finished and you will like it, too.
One day Mr. Roggen was on board an ocean liner bound from Germany to America. He hadn't been over there on a visit ; he was born there and was coming to America with his parents who had decided to cast their lot in the land of the free. At that time the photographer- to-be was ten years old. The family went directly to Chicago where the boy was placed in school.
When Mr. Roggen reached the age of seventeen he went to Texas and for five years enjoyed the hilarious, free, out-door life of a cowboy. One day, however, it occurred to him that it might be a good deal easier to cap- ture a wild steer or a frisky broncho with a snap-shot camera than with a lasso or lariat, and he immediately tried the experiment. It worked lovely and he adopted it permanently. He located in business at Galveston, but later removed to Deadwood, South Dakota, at a time when that town with a cemetery-like name was anything but dead. The first railroad was being built into Deadwood at that time and it was the wildest, woolbest and warmest spot on the continent.
Mr. Roggen, when the excitement died down at Dead- wood, located a studio in Chicago, and was later in busi- ness at points in Nebraska, lowa and Ohio. He came to Fort Wayne four years ago. He declares nothing short of an earthquake can jar him loose from this burg. He likes it. He is president of the Turnverein Vorwaerts and an active member of several other societies.
172
MARSHALL S. MAHURIN
M R. MAHURIN is here shown tightly holding onto the Indiana building at the World's Fair. He's proud of that building, because he, with his partner, J. F. Wing, designed it. Every other structure at the great show is jealous of the Hoosier headquarters, for it is a little beauty show of itself. The state of Indiana chose the Fort Wayne architects from among a large number as having furnished the best and prettiest building in which to let the tired folks from Indiana feel at home. But our master builders didn't get swell-headed over that honor at all. No, not a little bit. They're used to it. At another place in this book we have something to to say about Mr. Wing. It is there that you may easily find out why the receipt of recognition of ability and worth has long since ceased to make it impossible for Messrs. Wing & Mahurin to wear the same size of hat the year round.
To the careless thinker it sometimes appears that a successful architect is the heartless individual who merely makes hard labor for the other fellows, while he. himself, captures the bulk of the credit; but to the care- ful thinker he is the commanding general who marshals the forces of lumber and mortar and marble and human muscle and directs them against the enemies of the beautiful and the magnificent.
Mr. Mahurin is that sort of a man. He knows how. He learned how here in Fort Wayne by close application and up-to-dateness. He was horn in 1857, and after attending the public schools for a time began his study of architecture with George Trenam, who then conducted an office here. His partnership with Mr. Wing dates from 1881. Together they have designed hundreds of the finest structures in the central states.
INDIANA
CA
SUP
CHERRIES
PEACHES
( GAR
V
BYRON D. ANGELL
I T IS hard for us who have lived in Fort Wayne only a few years to realize that once the only commercial outlet of this thriving village was a busy canal. In these days there is no evidence of the existence of such a thing, at most there is very little left to remind the old Settler of those interesting days. But there are many who carry the picture of the old times very plainly in their minds, and one of these is B. D. Angell, who for a long time was employed as captain on a packet, or pas- senger boat, running between Lafayette and Toledo, the entire length of the Wabash and Erie canal. It was necessary at that time to bring in enough supplies dur- ing the summer to last through the long winter, so there was employment for many an industrious youth.
Mr. Angell came here from Little Falls, New York, when he was seventeen years old. His father operated a stage line between here and Sturgis, Michigan, the nearest point to which a railroad had been built connect- ing with the east. The lad drove one of these stages in the winter over the long, dreary route, and in the sual- mer was employed on the canal. At that time a passen- ger took a stage here in the morning and arrived at Sturgis in time to catch a train which landed him in Buf- falo the next morning. Such was the beginning ot our rapid transit. But the railroads began coming in and gradually the canal and the stage lines became numbered among the things that were.
Mr. Angell has been closely identified with the city's growth in many ways. As one of the founders of the city 'bus and transfer line he had a part in establishing an important business enterprise. For nine years he was secretary of the Gas Company. For the past eight years he has been giving his attention to the merchant brokerage business.
THEODORE F. THIEME
1 F anyone "attends to his knitting" more closely than this man does, we'd like to hear about it.
Some people thought Mr. Thieme had put his foot in it when he decided to establish a knitting mill in Fort Wayne to compete with foreign manufacturers: but instead of that, nearly everybody else is now putting his loot into the product of the great factory which is the outgrowth of Mr. Thieme's farsightedness, for the "Wayne Knit" goods are now the favorite the world over.
It is said that when Theodore's folks pulled onto his Squirming little feet the first pair of stockings he ever wore-that was in 1857-he cried and tried to get them off again. It was clear that he didn't fancy them, but not until he was able to talk could he explain that he was simply objecting to the make. He wanted only American-made goods and was bound to have them. This idea seemed to stay with him all the time he was in the local schools and college; it clung to him up to the time of lus graduation from the New York College of Pharmacy; it was there while he conducted a drug store in New York and later in Fort Wayne. So, finally he went abroad, in 1890, to investigate some of the indus- tries made more attractive to Americans by the enact- ment of the Mckinley law. He became interested in the hosiery industry in Chemnitz, Germany, and spent a winter there becoming acquainted with it. In 1891 he organized a company in Fort Wayne under the name of the Wayne Knitting Mills with a capital of $30,000, and returned to Germany for the machinery and twenty-five expert knitters. From this small beginning has grown an immense industry which is known the world over. Fort Wayne owes more than it can ever pay to Theodore F. Thieme for his contribution to its commercial welfare.
KNIT
1 C
NAT BEADELL
I F a gentleman invites you to his home, it is strictly proper to visit him there: if he has plenty of oppor- tumties to invite you and doesn't do so, then there is some question as to the propriety of going.
It's just so in the mercantile world. If a merchant, through the columns of the newspapers or by the use of some other medium, invites you to his store, go. If he doesn't, stay away. It would be very improper to visit him there unless you receive a formal request to do so.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.