USA > Louisiana > Orleans Parish > New Orleans > Standard history of New Orleans, Louisiana, giving a description of the natural advantages, natural history settlement, Indians, Creoles, municipal and military history, mercantile and commercial interests, banking, transportation, etc. > Part 54
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The oil mills also manufactured cotton-seed cake and meal, these being the . residue of the kernel after the oil had been extracted from it. They have ever been found excellent as a food for cattle,-and thousands of tons are exported to Europe each year for feeding stock,-as well as a high-grade fertilizer, and they enter into the manufacture of nearly all the commercial fertilizers produced in the South to-day.
The cotton-seed oil industry owes its origin to New Orleans. The process of manufacturing oil from the seed was discovered and improved there. New Orleans has always been the center of the industry, and the largest manufacturer of cotton-seed oil in the world. The industry attracts less attention now than in the earlier days, when there were half a dozen mills competing for the cotton-sced to be crushed by them, as it is in the hands, and more or less under the control, of a single concern to-day, the American Cotton-seed Oil Company. Moreover, a
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number of oil mills have recently sprung up in the interior towns in order to be near the supply of cotton-seed. These mills manufacture crude oil, which is shipped to New Orleans and there refined and prepared for the market. This city has, therefore, become more of a refining than an oil-manufacturing center. It still turns out more oil than any other city in the Union and handles the bulk of the product of the South, which is shipped through it to Europe or Chicago and other points where lard-rendering is an important industry. The largest mill, the Union, is situated at Gretna, immediately opposite New Orleans, and repre- sents the consolidation of several large companies. There are several independent concerns, of which the Standard Cotton-seed Oil Mill, Independent Mill and the Delta Refining Company may be mentioned.
Outgrowths of the cotton-seed oil industry are the soap mills and fertilizer and acid factories, of which New Orleans boasts several. The city possessed in its earlier days several large factories, manufacturing soap and candles, but the manu- facture of cotton-seed oil gave them much better material with which to work than they had used before, and the consequence was a larger production of soap, and of a better quality. The same is true of the fertilizer factories, which have found in cotton-seed meal the very material they needed for the manufacture of a high-grade fertilizer for use in cotton and sugar lands.
The Standard Guano and Chemical Manufacturing Company is one of the pioneers in Louisiana in the manufacture of commercial fertilizers. It was or- ganized in 1872, as Stern's Fertilizer and Chemical Company. The present com- pany was established in 1887, with a capital of $200,000 and a plant costing $100,000. It employs 200 hands and has an output of $1,000,000 a year-most of the fertilizers being manufactured for the cotton and sugar plantations.
The Standard Cotton-seed Oil Mill is an outgrowth of the Standard Guano and Chemical Company. It was established in 1878, with a capital of $120,000, employs 100 hands and does a business of about $500,000 a year. Its works arc located at the corner of Elysian Fields and Marigny avenucs.
The National Acid Company is an outgrowth of the Standard Guano Com- pany. It was organized in 1889 and manufactures sulphuric, muriatic and nitric acids and acid phospate, which are sold throughout the South and West. It has a capital of $210,000, employs about 100 men and has an output of $400,000 per year.
The Planters' Fertilizing Company was established in 1886. It is the out- growth of the Maginnis Oil Mills, which were for years pioneers in the manufac- ture of cotton-seed oil, as well as of soap manufactured from that oil.
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J. H. Keller's Soap Works cover two squares of ground at Felicity, Josephine and Front streets. They were established on a small scale by John H. Keller in 1849. The capital of the company is $150,000 and the output is $200,000 a year.
The Crescent City Soap Works, limited, are situated on Girod and Notre Dame streets.
Icc was first introduced into New Orleans about 1826, when it was regarded as a great luxury. It came from New England, mainly from Maine, in sailing vessels. A large part of the cargo was naturally lost in the long voyage, and the ice when it reached New Orleans commanded a high price. The supply was uncertain and the city was frequently without ice for weeks at a time during the hottest weather of summer. The importation of ice continued up to 1868, when the manufacture of artificial ice in New Orleans drove out the New England or natural product.
The first company in the field, the Louisiana Ice Company, was formed in 1868. The process of manufacturing was very expensive and the factory of the company cost no less than $450,000. It could be easily duplicated to-day for $50,000. Its output was 50 tons a day and sold for $20 a ton. Ice was then made with the Carré machines, manufactured in France. In 1878 the Louisiana Ice Company erected a second factory, on Front and Poydras streets, with a capacity of 75 tons per day.
A third factory was erected on Delord street, the capital, $150,000, being supplied by Senator Jones, of Nevada. A new process was employed in the manufacture of the ice, by the spraying of water on pipes. Senator Jones lost all the money he put in the enterprise.
The People's Ice Company erected a factory at the corner of Fulton and Julia streets, at a cost of $75,000, with a capacity of 50 tons a day. This factory went out of existence in 1892.
The Southern Ice Company erected a factory in 1881-2 at Tchoupitoulas and Third streets, at a cost of $133,000 and with a capacity of 50 tons a day. It is now owned by the Crescent Ice Company.
The Consumers' Ice Company erected a factory on Magazine and Girod streets, which cost $300,000 and had a capacity of 120 tons of ice per day. It is now owned by the Crescent Ice Company. The latter company, which had been in the natural ice business as carly as 1866, erected a factory in 1889, at the corner of Front and Lafayette streets, and in 1890 a second factory, at the corner of Decatur and Elysian Fields streets, the cost of the two factories being $250,000. A third factory
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was built in 1894, at the corner of Antonine and Tchoupitoulas streets, at a cost of $50,000 and with a capacity of 40 tons a day.
The Municipal Ice Company, established in 1892, built a factory at the cor- ner of Market and Tchoupitoulas streets, at a cost of $350,000, with a daily capacity of 200 tons of ice. This property was sold by the United States Marshal in 1899 for $60,000 and was bought in by the Crescent Ice Company, which now largely controls the manufacture of artificial ice in New Orleans, operating six factories, three of which it erected itself and threc it purchased. Its total output is 650 tons a day-more than enough to supply the needs of New Orleans and vicinity.
Since 1898, when the Crescent Ice Company secured a control of the artificial ice business of New Orleans, several new ice companies have been organized-the Carrollton Ice Company, on Burthe street ; the Crystal Ice Manufacturing Com- pany, on St. Peters street ; the Hercules Ice Company, on North Peters street ; the Home Ice and Distilled Water Company, at the corner of Water and Milan streets ; and the Independent Ice Company, on North Basin street. The processes used in the manufacture of artificial ice have been so improved, and simplified, and the cost of the machinery has been so reduced, that it calls for very little capital to embark in the business of making ice, and new companies are constantly springing into existence.
An outgrowth of the ice industry has been the distillation of water and its sale as a commercial product. The water from which ice is manu- factured in New Orleans is purified by distillation. As the water supply of the city is deficient, the river water being too muddy for use, several companies have embarked in the distillation of water, which is sold as low as five and six cents a gallon.
These industrics, the manufacture of artificial ice and cotton-seed oil, with its kindred products, and the cleaning of rice, sprang into existence in New Orleans, in the period 1865-1870, as the result of improved processes in manufacturing. At the same time that they were building up, an indus- try, which had been one of the oldest and most successful in the city, was seeing new life and vigor. This was the foundry business and the manufacture of machinery. It had owed its origin to the necessity of keeping in repair the steamboats engaged in the trade of New Orleans and the construction and repair of the sugar-houses. The year 1865 saw these sugar-houses almost com- pletely wrecked by four years of civil strife, overflow and neglect ; and the foundries and machine shops of the city had an accumulation of work on their hands suffi-
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cient to keep them busily employed for a decade. The result was an activity even greater than in the most prosperous ante-bellum days. Nor did this activity let. up. On the contrary the development of the sugar industry of Louisiana kept the foundries and machine shops busier than ever, and compelled them to steadily improve the quality of their output. The manufacture of a higher grade of sugar required more complicated machinery than had been used, and the New Orleans foundries were no longer mere repair shops, but turned out the most complicated machinery, supplying not only Louisiana, but other sugar-producing countries.
The Mckinley law, with its bounty proviso, stimulated the output of high- grade sugar machincry, since the bounty depended on the manufacture of the best quality of sugar. The Louisiana planters had to overhaul their sugar-houses and are estimated to have expended between $5,000,000 and $6,000,000 for improved machinery during the first two years the bounty was in operation. Nor did repeal check the demand for improved machinery, which has continued steady ever since. Formerly the planters made a large part of their purchases in Cincinnati, Pittsburg and other Northern points, but to-day the manufacture of sugar machinery is al- most wholly concentrated in New Orleans, which city has latterly been supplying not only Louisiana and the neighboring States of Texas and Florida, but Mexico, Central and South America and even for distant Hawaii.
The principal business of the New Orleans foundries is in the manufacture and repair of sugar machinery, but the cotton-presses and gins also give them some business, as do the steamboats and steamships with their boilers, etc. These facts will explain how it was that the foundry, boiler and machine shops of New Orleans enjoyed a prosperity in ante-bellum days which were not shared by any other manufacturing industries, not even by the manufacture of cotton goods and lumber, for which the city seemed in so many ways admirably adapted.
The foundries and machine shops were highly prosperous as early as 1840, employed a large number of hands, who were paid handsome wages and who were easily princes among the mechanics of the few struggling industries which at that time managed to survive in New Orleans.
One of the first factories in New Orleans was Leed's Foundry, established in 1825, in the square bounded by Delord, Constance, Tchoupitoulas and St. Joseph streets. It manufactured all kinds of machinery, but made a specialty of that employed in the manufacture of sugar. The founder of this factory, Jedediah Leeds, died in 1844, and the foundry passed into the hands of his heirs and his
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partner, John Leeds. It was doing a large manufacturing business when the Civil War broke out. The Confederate Government, finding New Orleans in danger from the Union fleet under Farragut, lying off the Passes, set to work to construct at New Orleans several powerful vessels of a new type and more or less ironclad, which would be able to meet and overcome the wooden vessels of which Farragut's fleet was mainly composed. Two of these vessels, the Louisiana and the Missis- sippi, were far in advance of anything in naval architecture which America had yet ventured on. The contract for the supply of the machinery to be used was let in New Orleans, and the Lecds Foundry, as the principal one, secured the best contracts. The two vessels of which so much was expected were not, however, completed in time and were set fire to and destroyed when it was announced that Farragut had passed Forts Jackson and St. Philip and was on his way up to New Orleans. There was some complaint made about the slowness of the New Orleans foundries in supplying the necessary machinery, and the whole transaction was made the subject of a special inquiry by the Confederate Congress, which showed that no blame attached to the local factories. As a matter of fact these foundries were in no position to manufacture ironclad men-of-war, however successful they might have been in turning out high-grade sugar machinery. In this connection it may be mentioned as an evidence of the development and improvement in New Orleans manufactories that in 1899 the Johnson Iron Works of that city furnished all the steel gunboats used by the republic of Mexico in patroling its Atlantic coast and in carrying on war with the Maya Indians of Yucatan.
The Leeds Foundry also turned out the cannons used by the citizens of New Orleans in the battle fought on the levee at the foot of Canal street, September 14, 1874, and which resulted in overthrowing the Kellogg State Government.
The Leeds foundry was subsequently incorporated as a company, with Mayor Charles J. Leeds as president. In 1896 the plant was purchased by the Schwartz Foundry Company, Limited, of which company Moses Schwartz was president, and the plant materially improved and enlarged.
The Daniel Edwards Foundry was established in 1846, by Daniel Edwards, an Englishman, who had been brought up in the business. After conducting the establishment for some years alone he associated with him in the firm his son, James D. Edwards, under the firm name of Daniel & James D. Edwards. It became James D. Edwards on the death of the founder, and in 1884 Edwards & Haubtman, when Mr. Leon F. Haubtman was taken into partnership. On the retirement of Mr. Haubtman, in 1893, the business was turned over to Daniel Edwards, grand-
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son of the founder, so that the firm, after many changes, returned at the end of a half century to its original name. The Edwards Iron Works arc on Front street and extend through the square to Delta street. They employ from 200 to 250 men, with a yearly output of $750,000, turning out all kinds of brass, copper and sheet- iron works and making a specialty of sugar machinery, as well for Cuba as for Louisiana. They have paid special attention to the diffusion process of extracting sugar from the cane and have built and equipped most of the diffusion plants in Louisiana and Texas.
John Ward established iron works in New Orleans in 1847. He was suc- ceeded by John W. Ward, a son, in 1876, and in 1899 by John A. Ward and Patrick Kelly. They employ 150 hands and manufacture sugar machinery and ship-work, boilers and tanks.
The Shakespeare Iron Works were established in 1845, on Girod strect, between Dryades and Baronne. They were operated originally by John Shakespeare, but passed at his death into the hands of his son, Joseph A. Shakespeare, for two terms mayor of New Orleans. Mr. Shakespeare took Julian Swoop into partnership, and the latter is now sole owner of the works. The foundry manufactures steam engines, sugar-mills, sawmills, drainage and centrifugal machines, gin gearings, grate bars, stone fronts, columns, ventilators and all kinds of blacksmith work. About 100 men are employed and the output is some $200,000 a year.
The McCann Iron Works were established by David McCann at their present location, Julia, South Peters, Fulton and Notre Dame streets. The business carried on has been that of general repairing of steamboat and steamship ina- chinery-all heavy work ; and about 40 men arc employed.
Joseph Sutton & Son, iron founders at 1158 South Peters strect, are successors of Mims & Cochran, who established the business in New Orleans in ante-bellum days. The present firm dates from 1886 and makes a specialty of marine and architectural iron work, including columns, posts, railings, etc. It also does somc work for sugar-mills.
The Johnson Iron Works, Limited, are on Julia, from Delta to Water streets. The works were established in 1869 and incorporated as a company in 1889, with a capital of $100,000. They employ 100 hands in the manufacture and repair of marine work, sawmills, electric plants, railroad work, etc. In 1899 the foundry began building stern-wheel steamers, lighters and small gunboats at Algiers, on the site formerly occupied by the Mclellan Dry Dock Company.
The Reynolds Iron Works Company, Limited, was established in 1869, at
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the corner of Fulton and Delord strects, with W. H. Reynolds as manager. It manu- factured cotton-presses, elevators, irrigating and drainage machinery and building ironmongery, and employed 125 men, with an annual output of $150,000. The affairs of the company are now in the process of liquidation.
Murphy's Foundry, on Magazine strect, near Lafayette, was established in 1884, and is especially devoted to sugar machinery, including nearly all the kinds used except the mills themselves. The New Orleans Boiler Works have been recently added to the plant as a branch, manufacturing steam boilers and bagasse furnaces and drags and conveyors for sugar-houses. In the machine shops 125 men are employed and in the boiler works 75, with a total output of $600,000. The sugar machinery manufactured is not confined to Louisiana, but a very large portion of it goes to Cuba, Mexico and other sugar-manufacturing countries.
The Algiers Iron Works Company, Limited, originally situated near the Good Intent dry docks in Algiers, opposite New Orleans proper, was established by A. Tufts & Company in 1890, but was purchased in 1896 by Mr. Connell, renamed the J. D. Connell Iron Works and transferred to 1207 South Peters street.
The H. Dudley Coleman Machinery Company was organized in 1890, as the successor of H. Dudley Coleman & Company. The business dates originally from 1850, when Willis P. Coleman began the manufacture in New Orleans of cane- mills. In 1865 Mr. Dudley H. Coleman was taken into partnership. The works of the company were situated at the corner of Erato and Magnolia streets and at one time were most prosperous, having a capital of $100,000, employing 150 men, with an output of $200,000, doing general foundry work of a heavy character, such as cane-mills and sugar-evaporating machinery, steam engines, boilers, mills, ma- chinery and mill supplies. The company is now in process of liquidation.
The Whitney Iron Works were incorporated in 1883. The business now owned and operated by the company was begun, in a small way, before the Civil War by E. M. Ivins. It was sold out to Charles G. Johnson, under whose proprictorship it was known as Johnson's Iron Works and was sold by him to the present company. It was always located on Tchoupitoulas, between Julia and St. Joseph streets. When the Whitney Iron Works were incorporated Mr. George Pandcly was made presi- dent and Newell Tilton, manager. Upon the death of Mr. Pandely in 1894, Mr. Charles M. Whitney became president, and upon the death of Mr. Tilton, in 1895, Mr. A. H. Swanson succeeded as manager. The works have been increased in many respects of recent years and arc now one of the largest of their kind in the Southern States. Their principal business is the manufacture of sugar ma-
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chincry, repair work for steamships, sawmill machinery and a general line of heavy castings and all kinds of foundry work. Of recent years the company has been shipping sugar machinery in large quantities to South America. It employs from 200 to 400 men, dependent upon the season and the amount of business on hand.
There has been some development in other lines of iron and other metal manu- factories, such as agricultural implements, but nothing like that in sugar machinery, . foundry work, etc.
The Crescent City Cornice Works, situated on Perdido, between St. Charles and Carondelet streets, were established in 1892 by R. A. Vancleave. It employs 60 hands and confines itself to cornice and ornamental work, building fronts, skylights, ventilators, ice-cans and exhaust and blow pipes.
Hinderer's Iron Fence Works are located on Camp street, opposite Margaret Placc. They were established in 1884, and employ 20 hands, manufacturing artistic iron fences and iron furniture of all kinds.
The Haller Manufacturing Company was established in 1888, by Mr. H. Haller, who had personally been in the business since 1865. The company, which is incorporated with a capital of $50,000, is located at the corner of Constance and Orange streets. It manufactures all kinds of sheet-metal goods and stamped tinware. It employs 150 men.
The sugar industry of Louisiana may claim to have founded the important machinery and foundry business of New Orleans. It also naturally built up the business of refining sugar, as well as the refining and clarifying of molasses.
The largest single manufacturing industry in New Orleans is that of sugar- refining. The business, however, is almost exclusively in the hands of the American Sugar Refining Company (the so-called sugar trust), and it is difficult to get exact data on the subject of production. Even in 1890, when the Government was taking the census, the statistics were deficient and unsatisfactory. The American Sugar Refining Company's plant in New Orleans is one of the largest manufacturing establishments in the country, and the third sugar refinery in size. It consists of two large refineries, adjoining cach other, including a cooperage, where are manu- factured the barrels used for the sugar turned out by it. Of these two refineries, the Planters' was erected by E. J. Gay in 1876, for the purpose of refining the sugar crop of Louisiana, the bulk of which at the time was low-grade sugar. The Louisiana Refincry was erected in 1883. Both ultimately passed into the hands of the American Sugar Refining Company and have been greatly improved and added
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS. 529
to by it since then. The eapaeity of the two refineries is 1,250,000 pounds of sugar per day, and not only is all the sugar erop of Louisiana needing refining handled by them, but many million pounds are imported annually from Cuba, Hawaii and even Germany. The output frequently runs up to $10,000,000 or more a year, a large part of the sugar consumed in the Mississippi Valley being refined in New Orleans.
Henderson's Sugar Refinery, located at the corner of South Peters and Julia streets, is the sueeessor of a small refinery established in 1867 by Adam Goodal. It was purehased by William Henderson in 1876, when it was removed to the Peliean Warehouse, where it remained until 1892; it was then established at its present site. It has a eapaeity of 800 barrels of sugar per day.
Another outgrowth of the refining and sugar industries of Louisiana are the molasses factories of New Orleans, which take the crude molasses, mueh of it of a low grade, and prepare it for the market. Among the factories are the Louisiana Molasses Company, Constanee and St. Joseph streets ; National Refining Company, North Peters street ; Southern Molasses Company, St. Louis street ; and Wogan Brothers, North Peters and Port streets.
The lumber industry of New Orleans is one of the oldest. As has been noted the eity even in its earliest days shipped a large quantity of lumber or boxes to Havana to be used in marketing the Cuban sugar crop. Later on it manufactured sueh lumber as it needed for its building trades, eisterns, tanks, shingles, ete. Cy- press was almost exelusively used for these purposes, and it was not until about twenty years ago that the value of yellow pine was fully recognized. Even to- day eypress is the only wood mainly sawed in the New Orleans mills. The concentration of the lumber industry in the city has been due to the ease with which the lumber ean be marketed there. The mills are situated either on the river front or on the new or old basin. The logs are floated down to them, while the lumber, doors and other output, are easily conveyed to any market. Whereas a few years ago the greater part of the lumber consumed in New Orleans in the building trades was imported into the eity from the rural distriets, mainly the Mississippi Sound country, now threc-fourths of the lumber used in the eity, whether for building or in the furniture or other kindred trades, is sawed in the city itself; and the output of the eity mills is constantly inereasing. The output of the eity sawmills was 49,000,000 feet of lumber in 1897, 60,000,000 in 1898 and 85,000,000 in 1899, and will probably reach the 100,000,000 limit in 1900. The city mills also turn out nearly all the laths and shingles used in New Orleans.
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