USA > Kansas > Nemaha County > History of Nemaha County, Kansas > Part 8
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The one exception to the fact that this county is the absolute do- main of the farmer is found at Seneca and is the Seneca Brick Manu- factory, a thriving industrial concern, which is one of the best managed and successful concerns of its kind in the West. This is what might be called an "infant industry" as yet, and has been in existence for the past ten years, its course of growth having been marked by various vicissi- tudes and "ups and downs," which have been apparently solved of late since the new and economical system of brick burning has been installed by the inventor and superintendent, K. W. Klose. This system is called the "Klose Continuous Tunnel Kiln," and has excited the attention and scientific comment from brick men in all parts of the New and the Old World.
"The Brick and Clay Record," a journal devoted to the brick manu- facturing and clay products business, in its issue of December 1, 1912, has an appreciation and full comment to make regarding the Klose Contin- uous Kiln, in operation at the Seneca Shale Brick works, under the title,
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"Makes a Continuous Kiln at Cost of $3,000. Young Kansan May Revo- lutionize the Method of Burning Clay With Recent Invention-Simplic- ity and Efficiency Mark System, Which Include Drying and Conveying."
A conveying system that combines simplicity and service, or a drying method that is inexpensive and at the same time practical or a continuous tunnel kiln that is possible at one-tenth of the present cost of construction-either of these three goals would be considered sufficient unto itself by the progressive manufacturer. But group all three into one compact system, under one roof and not only reduce the cost of con- struction and operation, but increase efficiency and improve the product and you have an achievement few clay workers hope to realize.
Despite those who have declared it never would be, the goal has been reached, and like all milestones in the march of progress, "Neces- sity, the Mother of Invention," secures the credit.
The idealistic combination has gone beyond the experimental stage. It actually exists. For the past year a complete brick, tile and hollow block plant has been using it at Seneca, Kans., and, as the tidings spread the little town has been the mecca for doubting, yet interested, clay workers.
The first public announcement of the new system appeared in "Brick and Clay Record," September 15, 1912, and came from the in- ventor himself-K. W. Klose, a young German who has struggled in ob- scurity until now, but whose fame and name bid fair to be known wher- ever clay is utilized in a manufactured product.
Mr. Klose, like most geniuses, is a modest, retiring sort of a fellow, uncommunicative and slow to acknowledge that he has accomplished more than his fellow laborers. But he carries three diplomas to attest the claims of his friends and acquaintances that he is peculiarly well equipped for the important mission he undertook. One of these is from a government college in his native German province and the other is from a technical school not far from Berlin, and the other is from the school of experience, located in Germany, the home of the continuous kiln. and the United States.
The announcement that appeared in this journal last September was in keeping with the nature of the man and so modest that few realized its full value at first. But gradually it dawned upon many that somewhere out in Kansas, among the clay hills of the Missouri river valley, there was the beginning of a revolution in the clay manufacturing industry and for weeks the one hotel at Seneca has been taxed by an increasing patronage and the narrow little road that winds around the foothills to the north of the city has been the most trodden in that vicinity.
One of the most recent tourists was the writer, and like his fellow- travelers he left the train filled with doubt. Mr. Klose's claim was a broad one. Others have startled the world with exaggerated announce- ments. Others have made claims equally as broad and possibly more probable, but usually the results were the same- a bubble that exploded
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or an air castle that never materialized when the searchlight of investi- gation was turned on.
Not so with Mr. Klose and his announcement. Five minutes in his plant are more than sufficient to convince any practical clay worker, how- ever skeptical he may be, for simplicity is one of the strongest features of the Klose system, and even a novice may grasp the fullness of the idea with ease.
The first view of the Seneca Shale Brick Company's plant, where Mr. Klose operates his system, is disappointing to the visitor. Nestling in the foothills there is just an ordinary hollow block building of modest proportions. One, for some reason, expects to see something a "little different," but there it is, a modest structure that may house a bicycle repair shop instead of a new drying and burning system that has caused brickmakers to sit up and take notice. You enter the building and the first sweep of your eyes increases your disappointment.
For the whole length of the building there is only a paved floor, piles of green brick or hollow block on either side alone breaking the monotony. A second glance discloses an "I" beam running the full length and width of the structure and bearing an exelectric triplex hoist -- about the only visible sign of modern efficiency.
Another hurried sweep of the eyes and in one corner of the long room the visitor sees a combination brick and tile machine of the Amer- ican Clay Machinery Company's design busy turning out the product of the plant. Close to the cutter there is a double electric hoist, which conveys the green brick or block to the floor above.
You turn to your guide, Klose himself, and he meets your look of disappointment with a smile.
"Where's the kiln?" you ask.
"You're standing on it now," he replies quietly, and points to the floor beneath. For the first time you feel the warmth on the soles of your shoes and you make haste to leave the inch or so of loose clay that covers the brick pavement, cropping out here and there.
You are inclined to believe the young German is having some fun at your expense, but just then a fellow comes along with a small scoop, no larger than a housewife uses in her flour bin. He takes a small cap, which heretofore has not been observed, and you see him disclose an opening scarcely five inches across. He sprinkles in barely a quart of small screened coal. The cap goes back into place and the fellows sits on a small stool to one side and proceeds to enjoy his pipe. You watch him in amazement.
"Is he the kiln tender?" you manage to ask. Your guide nods as- sent. "And is that all the coal he puts in there?" Again there is a smiling nod in the affirmative. At regular intervals you observe the burner leave his seat, take up his tiny scoop and lifting the next cap. proceed to replenish the fire in the burning chamber below.
And then Mr. Klose consents to tell you about his kiln and when
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he has explained its principle you look down at the "trench in the ground," as the visitor invariably calls it, and exclaim :
"How simple! Why didn't I think about it?"
And that one explanation conveys better than pages of type the secret of Mr. Klose's invention. The kiln is not so much more than a "hole in the ground," with four brick walls and its simplicity and de- sign of construction destined to create a stir in the clay world just as soon as the clay worker learns about it. .
Think of it! A continuous tunnel kiln with a capacity of 600,000 brick per month, that can be constructed for less than $3,000, or one- tenth of the cost of the ordinary tunnel-kiln and yet better and more efficient.
But simplicity does not end with the kiln. Mr. Klose has carried the same idea, coupled with economy and efficiency, into his conveying system and drier, and your inspection of the entire plant is a revelation to you.
Briefly stated, the Klose system in operation in the Seneca plant takes into consideration these three main points :
First .- A conveying system that works almost automatically and which is part of the general scheme of saving time, labor and improving the efficiency. This is so constructed and located that a small boy can operate it.
Second .- A drying system which utilizes radiated heat from the kiln and which is so constructed as to form a compact unit with the whole.
Third .- A continuous, tunnel kiln which can be constructed at the minimum of expense and at the same time prove efficient and econom- ical."-Extract from "Brick and Clay Record," issue of December I. 1912.
Since the installation of the Klose system in the Seneca plant, Mr. Klose has installed fourteen systems identically the same in other plants throughout the country.
The Klose system has proven to be a wonderful economical success in the Seneca Shale Brick Company's plant and its operation under Mr. Klose's supervision and management has placed a struggling concern, which has been operating at a decided loss, on a practical paying basis.
The plant is now being operated at a profit to the stockholders and the men who pinned their faith on the ultimate success of the clay in- dustry in Seneca are destined to receive substantial dividends on their investments which for a time had the appearance of being precarious and not productive if not in danger of actual loss.
The Seneca Shale Brick Company was launched entirely by local capitalists, who invested their money in the enterprise in the hope of doing something which would benefit their home city and give employ- ment to labor at all times of the year. There is little market for labor in Seneca and the surrounding country, except on the farms, and the Sen-
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eca Brick Company takes care of some eighteen or twenty men in this respect at the present time.
The company was organized in 1906 with a capital of $10,000, and was composed of George A. Shaul, J. H. Cohen, George W. Williams, L. B. Keith, H. B. Nichols, August Kramer, Ira B. Dye, Dr. W. F. Drum, H. C. Settle, Mrs. C. G. Scrafford. They acquired or leased a tract of land upon which a bed of shale had been discovered near the surface that seemed to be apparently exhaustless and located on the John Fox farm one-half mile west of Seneca. This bed of shale also underlies the William land. Since excavating has been undertaken, it has been found that the depth of the shale is indeterminable and in- creases in quality with depth. A small vein of coal has also been uncov- ered and it is thought by people who have studied the formation that deeper excavations on the site of the bed already uncovered will reveal the presence of another vein of coal of greater thickness.
The brick industry had its beginning with a venture made by cap- italists who drilled for oil in the northeastern part of Seneca. When the drill had reached a depth of 800 feet granite was struck and the drilling was stopped. The outfit was moved to the Smith farm west of the city and placed in operation. At a depth of sixty feet brick making shale was struck. After drilling another twenty feet the promoters decided that the shale underlies other lands in the vicinity, and the stratum was followed lower down the fall of the ground and outcroppings were ob- served in the vicinity of the present plant. George A. Shaul was watch- ing the drilling operations and came to the conclusion that an exten- sive deposit of shale was to be found. Careful prospecting uncovered other and similar deposits, and the outcrop was found on the Williams property. At this time, Mr. Shaul was building the State Normal Lib- rary at Penn. Neb., and Ira B. Dye was operating a brick plant at this place. Mr. Shaul took a quantity of the shale to Mr. Dve's plant, and after a thorough test, it was ascertained that the shale was of excellent quality, which, upon burning, produced a fine building brick. He then organized the company of local men to undertake the manufacture of brick and tile.
As is usual in the launching of similar enterprises in a city like Sen- eca, there were many "doubting Thomases" who declared that the ven- ture would be a failure. However, enough patriotic citizens were induced to put up the necessary capital, a plant installed and the actual manu- facture of brick in Seneca was begun. The company installed the old style of kiln with its heavy fuel capacity and waste of heat which was so great that the venture could not be made a success, and for years, was a losing venture to the stockholders.
When the fortunes of the company were at their lowest ebb and it seemed that the enterprise was doomed to failure, Mr. Shaul, who was erecting a building at Lincoln, Neb., met K. W. Klose, a skilled clay worker, who had just returned from Seattle, where he had placed a
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brick plant in operation only to have it destroyed by a landslide just after the plant had been placed in operation. Mr. Shaul induced Mr. Klose to come to Seneca, take an interest in the company and take charge of the plant. This was in 1911. Mr. Klose installed the contin- uous tunnel kiln, described so well in the "Brick and Clay Record," and the plant has since been enjoying an era of prosperity.
At the present time, (1916), the plant is turning out 20,000 brick per day, and it is probable that this output will be increased as patron- age demands. Brick were furnished for the building of the new Hiawatha High School, erected in 1915, and the brick used in the Marysville, Kans., High School were also made in Seneca. Carloads of the factory product are shipped as far west as Colorado. The hollow tile product is sup- plied to a wide range of territory.
The present capitalization of the Seneca Shale Brick Company is $15,000. The officers and stockholders of the corporation are: George W. Williams, president; George A. Shaul, vice president; L. B. Keith, secretary ; Edwin Cohen of Spokane, Wash., and K. W. Klose, man- ager.
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CHAPTER X.
SABETHA.
UNLIKE OTHER TOWNS-NAME-SABETHA EXCELS-A HEALTHFUL CLI- MATE-MODEL TOWN-PROSPEROUS CITIZENS-FARM PRODUCTS SHIPPED-PROMINENT MEN-AN INCIDENT OF HONOR-SABETHA PEOPLE EVERYWHERE-HOW NAMED-TOWN LOCATED-TOWN COM- PANY ORGANIZED-ORGANIZATION-THE LIBRARY-A RARE HOST- INDUSTRIES AND BUSINESS HOUSES-ALBANY, THE MOTHER OF SA- * BETHA-REMINISCENCES OF THE LATE J. T. BRADY.
Sabetha, the unique! Few things in Sabetha are like any other country town, and in those few things Sabetha excels. There is only one town in the world with a name similar to Sabetha, and that town is located in a remote section of Africa where the cannibals occasionally appear and use the population to make material for the barbecue on picnic dates. Sabetha is different even from this far-off African name- sake in that we furnish the picnics for the outlying country instead of being served for the barbecue.
Sabetha was named by a very pious Biblical student, who started across the plains to California to seek gold; whose oxen died near here on a Sunday, and who, performing the last sad rites over the grave, named the spot Sabetha as a euphoneons substitute for the Hebrew word, "Sabbaton," which signifies Sunday. The fact that the Biblical student retrieved his fortune, and was able to buy other oxen, by selling what liquor he had in store, is nothing against the present town, as there is not a liquor license in the place. Not one of the Sabetha drug stores has a liquor license, and no liquor has been sold in the town for over ten years.
This is a very rich agricultural region, and there is health in the air and wealth in the products of the ground. Everything appears here in exaggerated form. This section holds the record for the biggest yield of wheat and corn, and Mrs. Annie Redline, a native of this city, now deceased, measured seven feet and eleven inches waist measurement and weighed 611 pounds. Being four feet and eight inches in height, she was broader than she was tall, contrasting with George Hook, Will Alderfer and many other residents who are nearly seven feet tall and not so wide. Mrs. Redline was acknowledged the heaviest woman in the world.
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This is a good locality for sick people also. F. A. Gue came here many years ago, completely helpless. He took treatment at Sycamore springs and cured one side, and then took treatment at Sun springs, a few miles away, and cured the other side, and he is today a hearty and vigorous man. Even the waters gush up wonders from the bowels of the earth around Sabetha.
J. P. Matthews is acknowledged by rural mail route inspectors as maintaining the most perfect rural mail route schedule in the United States. For years he has delivered mail on his rural route No. I out of Sabetha on a schedule that has not varied five minutes a day for each box, except on very rare instances, ranking with any railroad schedule in the country.
GAR AGE
BUSINESS SECTION, SABETHA, KANS. SABETHA IS A MODERN CITY, WITH PAVED STREETS, BRILLIANTLY LIGHTED.
Sabetha has eighteen and one-half miles of artificial stone side- walks, between sixty and seventy miles of dragged roads, paved streets, municipal power, heat and light, a white way, the most beautifully kept homes and lawns in the State, and a boy prodigy who speaks eleven dif- ferent kinds of hog latin. Sabetha has no pig tail alley population, maintain only sixteen talking machines and never permits any public speaking at its celebrations. The band boys never practice after 9 o'clock at night. Forty new homes were built here last year and this. Seven new business buildings have gone up within a year, the last.
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which is of pressed brick, being perhaps the finest structure in any country town in northeastern Kansas. The building contains the coat of arms of Roy Hesseltine, the builder, including the shield carved in stone.
Sabetha holds the record for viewing crops with alarm oftener than any other town in the United States, although the products are greater to the acre than any other spot of similar size in the country. The rec- ord in question is the natural outcome of the fact that farm land here is worth around $150 an acre; and a farmer, in order to realize twenty-five per cent. on his investment of a quarter section, and pay himself a sal- ary of $1,000 or $1,500 a year, is easily excited lest his income be cut down by short yields. Two rural families moved down to Abilene last fall and lifted in deposits over $100,000 out of the local banks.
Here is a carefully compiled record of products of this immediate vicinity, shipped out of Sabetha in 1906, to say nothing of what we ate and have left:
Hogs
$ 200,000
Cattle
220,000
Poultry
165,000
Eggs
125,000
Butter
115,000
Horses
150,000
Seeds
77,000
Hides
5,000
Wheat
55,500
Corn
35,000
Cream
35,000
Apples
11,000
Flour
10,000
Hay
3,000
Total
$1,206,500
Among the other products of Sabetha we mention, incidentally, the following: Edwin Slosson, editor of the conservative old New York "Independent" magazine: Dr. Orville Brown, who is curing consump- tion, as chief physician of the new Missouri State Sanitarium at Mt. Ver- non in the Ozark mountains, established by the State of Missouri; A. G. Lohman, who has revolutionized the treatment of so-called incorrigible boys by the method he has inaugurated in the Cleveland boys' home, maintained by the city of Cleveland through Tom Johnson, the reform mayor; Fred Gates, the famous financier of 26 Broadway, New York, and distributer of all John D. Rockefeller's charities and one of the prime movers in the founding of the University of Chicago; W. A. Quayle, the Kansas City divine and writer; Charley Clarkson, head of
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Armour's credit system, and Rev. Jud Miner, who can sing "Lead Kind- ly Light" so much better than Tom Anderson of Topeka can sing "Old Shady," that he can put Anderson down and out and sit on him.
Sabetha is a town of a very high honor. In the nineties one of the Bell Telephone Company's representatives spoke discourteously to a committee representing the town. Instantly every telephone in the city was ordered out by the indignant subscribers. The Bell's plant was paralyzed for sixteen days, and not a telephone was used. One of the head officers of the company was sent to Sabetha. He humbly apolo- gized in the name of the company, and George Washington Hook, the town operator, made a brilliant speech of acceptance, and all the tele- phones were put back into use again.
"Sabetha people are all over the world and either themselves or their blood relatives are into everything. No difference what happens in the world, either some Sabetha person or a relative of a Sabethan, is in it. Sabetha is even related to the nobility. Sabetha was in the San Fran- cisco earthquake strong; it figured on the Thaw jury; it cut ice in the Russian-Japanese war; it is in the army and navy, and it touches at nearly every port in the world. Therefore it is impossible for anything to happen on the earth without Sabetha being in it; and if anything happens on the heavenly planets, a Sabetha woman is married to and is the assistant of Prof. William Joseph Hussey, the noted astronomer at the Michigan State University at Ann Arbor, and she will be in on the ground floor.
If anything has been left unsaid in this modest epistle, it is not be- cause Sabetha is not in it, but because of the Czar-like restrictions of this contest, under which Sabetha chafes, and as a result of which she hereby offers nineteen additional columns which must be left unsaid."- From a Kansas town contest in the Topeka "Capital" in 1906. The fol- lowing story of Sabetha upholds the foregoing claims :
The naming of Sabetha, the sister town of Seneca, with whose pop- ulation Sabetha keeps pace always and occasionally a little ahead, will always bring on a controversy. The best story and the one that sounds most logical is this. Sabetha has the distinction of being the only town of the world so named. In the Holy Land is a town called Sabbaton, meaning, as Sabetha does, "Sabbath." This coincidence leads many to think that Sabetha's name came to it as follows. At any rate, it is an amusing and interesting tale, and as historical as any other. Early in the fifties, a tall, slim, wrinkled man of middle age, a bachelor, came to the vicinity of Sabetha on his way to California. The bachelor had had a dream of a wonderful gold mine in California, and was trying to make the trip to find it, alone. He had an elaborate map, showing the loca- tion of the gold and the topography of the country surrounding.
When he had traveled with his ox team from St. Joseph to near the present site of Sabetha, the traveler met with misfortune. One of his oxen died. This fateful incident led to the naming of Sabetha. The
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man was a Greek scholar and well versed in mythical lore; also a stu- dent of the Bible. His oxen were named Hercules and Pelleas. Pel- leas passed away on Sunday, and the bachelor was obliged to remain here. He pitched his tent and dug a well. The well he named Sabbaton, the Greek word for Sabbath, in honor of the day.
The traveler had two gallons of whiskey which he peddled to the few settlers and passersby. When the whiskey was gone, he went to St. Joseph and procured more, becoming a full fledged bartender. Peo- ple came in to drink at the Sabetha well, as well as at the traveler's bar. The well water was exceptionally fine, and the Sabetha well became known from St. Joseph to California, as it was on the direct route of travelers to the golden State.
The traveler, having partly realized on his dreams of wealth through his golden liquor trade, returned to his home in the East.
Captain Williams came afterward and located on the present town- site of Sabetha. The well was so famous that many people traveled long distances to drink of its waters. The same waters are now the Sycamore springs, widely known for their medicinal value. Captain Williams is said to have closed the original well and started a well on his own property five miles southwest, calling it Sabetha.
When the St. Joseph and Grand Island railroad was built into this territory, it was decided to build a town. Fred Ukeley, now a wealthy retired farmer of Sabetha, heard of the scheme and rode all night, telling the settlers of the Sabetha well on Captain William's land, where the town should be located. The next day J. T. Brady, T. B. Collins, Ira Collins and Archibald Moorhead bought the Williams quarter section, including the Sabetha well, for $7,000, and organized a town company.
But it was four years after its actual foundation, according to law, that Sabetha had a real city government apart from the township. In 1874, an election was ordered for August 15. Six hundred citizens had petitioned Judge Hubbard, of Atchison, in which the Nemaha county judicial district was then included, for a city corporation. A city of the third class was then ordered, and the election of officers resulted in Ira F. Collins being the first mayor ; A. E. Cook, police judge; M. E. Ma- ther, Isaac Sweetland, John Muxworthy, J. T. Brady and G. H. Adams, members of the council. For most part these men have remained with Sabetha, and always interested in the welfare of the town. Mr. Collins is still a resident of the town. J. T. Brady, who helped build another town, Pomona, in California, remained faithful to Sabetha to the day of his death, in the summer of the year 1914. Mr. Sweetland's children and grandchildren are still Sabethia citizens. Mr. Adams' children own Sabetha property today. Mr. Muxworthy's children, wherever they live, call Sabetha, home.
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