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 55
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STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
On the other hand, the brick industry, which was formerly in a very healthy condition, has moved away from New Orleans, and now nine-tenths of the brick used in the city is imported from St. Tammany Parish or from along the line of the Illinois Central Railroad.
The Fischer Lumber and Manufacturing Company, Limited, opcrates the Picayune Saw and Planing Mill on the banks of the Mississippi in Carrollton. It was established in 1868 by F. Fischer, handling mainly cypress lumber, The firm became F. Fischer & Sons in 1887 and was incorporated as a limited company under that name in 1890. The mill manufactures cypress lumber, shin- gles, barrel headings and staves, and carries a large quantity of lumber in stock. It employes 100 hands, and, with a capital of $250,000, turns out products to the value of $500,000 per year.
The Algiers Saw and Planing Mills, which was formerly the property of Hotard and Lawton, is now operated by Albert E. Hotard alone. The mill proper employs only 35 men, but it has a number of others engaged in the parishes in getting out timber, chiefly yellow pine. The plant was established in 1879 by Peter Fink, who retired in 1892.
The Berwick Lumber Company, situated at Clio and Freret streets, dcals in sashes, doors, blinds and saloon and office fixtures. It owns cypress lumber and shingle mills at Berwick, St. Mary parish, Louisiana, its establishment there having a capacity of 60,000 feet of lumber and 30,000 shingles per day. The factory in New Orleans, which converts their lumber into sashes, doors and blinds and other finished products, employes 100 hands. Other lumber and planing mills are the Central Manufacturing and Lumber Company, Lambou & Noel Company, W. Moffett, Roberts & Co., Pelican Sawmills, W. L. Sirjacques & Co., American Manu- factory, Crescent City Manufacturing Company and Brackenridge Lumber Com- pany.
The Otis Manufacturing Company, situated at the foot of Marengo street on the Mississippi river, was established in 1860 by Henry Otis, and the present com- pany was incorporated in 1882. Its capital is $100,000, and it employs 75 hands. It is mainly engaged in the manufacture of lumber from mahogany, Spanish cedar and other timber of the tropics, and has vessels running to Mexico and the West Indies for the importation of these woods. They are cut into lumber and vencering, to be used in the manufacture of furniture, cigar boxes, etc. The mill lias a capacity of 35,000 feet of lumber per day, and the annual output is estimated at $300,000.
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531
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
The Orleans Manufacturing and Lumber Company, located at the corner of Julia and Clara streets, on the new basin, was established in 1888 and for a time was the largest manufacturing establishment of its kind New Orleans, employing 200 hands, having a capital of $150,000 and doing a business of $300,000 a year ; but it is now in liquidation. It manufactured sashes, doors and blinds and dealt in lumber generally.
L'Hote & Company's Sash and Blind Factory is situated on Basin street, at the head of the old basin. It was established in 1847 by George L'Hote, now deceased. The factory eovers three aeres of ground and is one of the largest of its kind in the South. It makes a specialty of manufacturing eabins and dwellings framed for shipment and for interior finish. It has filled many contraets for foreign countries, partieularly for Mexico, and furnished the lumber for the Orizaba ex- position buildings and the quarantine station at Vera Cruz. George L'Hote, son of the founder of the faetory, is now the manager. It employs 200 hands and has an output of 50,000 feet of lumber per day.
The other industries dependent upon wood as the principal material used by them have not made as great an advanee as the manufacturers of lumber, doors, sashes and blinds and such other artieles used in the building trades. But, even in their lines there has been some advanee, and New Orleans now turns out a great deal of furniture, some of it of a high grade.
The cooperage business continues mueh as it was of old, save that it is con- centrated in one or two large concerns, of which the Brooklyn Cooperage Company is an example, instead of being distributed among a seore of small factories as formerly.
The manufacture of eisterns and tanks also continues mueh the same as formerly, but attracts less attention than it did beeause of the development of other and more important industries. The cypress of Louisiana being found one of the best woods for resisting injury and deeay from water, the Louisiana fae- tories do a large business in making tanks for Central and South America and the West and Northwest. The bulk of the business is in the hands of the country factories in Plaquemines and Baton Rouge, although New Orleans shares some of it.
In spite of the fact that New Orleans for more than half a century before the Civil War was the great cotton eenter of the United States and the world, supply- ing the eotton mills of New England and Europe with all the raw material used by them, it made no movement in the direction of using the eotton handled in the manufacture of eotton goods. In Southwestern Louisiana some of the small farm-
532
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
ers-Creoles and Acadians-had manufactured in their lines a small amount of a cloth which, like all homespun cloth, was coarse, but of a very strong texturc. The cloth, known as Attakapas or "Tuckapaw," from the name the district was then known by, was popular and sold well; but the output was very small and there was shown no disposition to increase it. The industry was confined to a few families and handed down from mother to daughter; this spinning and weaving still prevails in many Acadian houscholds, where the hand loom is always a promi- nent piece of furniture.
The only venture made by New Orleans in cotton manufacturing in the early days was the Whitney mill, erected by Mr. B. Whitney, at the corner of Tchoupi- toulas and Roffignac streets, in 1838. The machinery was complete in all particu- lars, and the operations of picking, carding, spinning, dyeing and weaving were carried on simultaneously in the manufacture of twilled and double-twilled cotton goods. The venture attracted less attention than it would to-day. There being no skilled labor in New Orleans, Mr. Whitney had to import his labor from New England. The venture was only a temporary success, and went the way of several other similar ones of a later day.
In 1864, however, a more successful venture was made, although on a smaller scale. Mr. N. L. Lane erected a small cotton mill at the foot of Cadiz street, in what was then the city of Jefferson, but is now the Sixth Municipal District of New Orleans. From a very small beginning the inill gradually increased in size, and in 1883 it was incorporated with a capital of $375,000. At that time the mill had 2,160 spindles and 68 looms, which were increased to 10,000 spindles and 308 looms, and again increased in 1894 to 17,000 spindles and 368 looms, while important additions were made to the buildings. The Lane Mills, for they retained the name of their founder, although they have passed into other hands, employ about 450 hands and manufacture sheetings, twills, ducks, osnaburgs, denims, yarns and camlets to the value of about $400,000 a year.
It is not necessary to mention the several failures in the establishment of new cotton mills, one of the most conspicuous of which was the Louisiana Mill, upon which a considerable amount of money was expended, and which, after promising well in the beginning, proved a failure, and in doing so had a most unfavorable influence on the cotton industry in New Orleans, as it seemed to demonstrate that it could not be carried on here profitably,-a view of the matter which has since been corrected by the success of the Maginnis mills.
The Maginnis Cotton Mill No. 1 was erected in 1881, with 15,300 spindles and
533
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
360 looms. John B. Maginnis was the founder and served as president until his death. In 1888 a second mill, called No. 2, was built, with 19,968 spindles and 696 looms, the two mills having a capacity together of 11,000 to 12,000 pounds of cotton per day. Upon the death of John H. Maginnis, his brother, A. A. Maginnis, was elected president, and under his management the mill was still further increased to 40,752 spindles and 1,216 looms, consuming an average of 16,000 pounds of cotton each working day and turning out 65,000 yards of cloth, as well as a quantity of hosiery, yarn, cotton-batting and cordage. Its products are largely shipped abroad, going to South and Central America, as well as all parts of the United States. The mills employ 800 to 1,000 people, with a monthly pay-roll of from $14,000 to $18,000.
In 1899 the movement in favor of cotton mills in the South, which had shown such success in the South Atlantic States and brought about the erection of so many new mills, struck New Orleans, and a meeting called for the purpose of considering the subject appointed a committee to collect subscriptions for a new cotton mill, a number of large subscriptions being guaranteed in advance.
If, however, there are no large cotton mills, there have been established in New Orleans during the last ten years a number of smaller establishments, such as knitting mills for the manufacture of hosiery, jerseys, knitted underwear and similar goods, and these knitting mills supply a very considerable portion of the cheaper class of goods used in New Orleans and the region tributary to it.
The Alden Knitting Mills were established in 1891, with an authorized capital of $10,000, and with Joseph E. J. Meyer as president. The works were first located on Julia street, with an output of only 50 dozen pairs of hose per day. In 1894 they were transferred to Decatur street and the product increased to 800 dozen of socks and ladies' hose per day, sold in all parts of the United States, the distributing points being New York and Chicago. The works employ 125 girls and about 10 men. The capital remains at $10,000, but the investment amounts to $60,000. Since 1894 the company has done its own dyeing, having established the first aniline and salt dyeing plant south of Baltimore. A. W. Mclellan became president in 1892.
The Kohlman Knitting Mills, on St. Thomas street, also manufacture hosiery and underwear.
Although New Orleans handled all the tobacco of Kentucky and Ohio in the earlier days when tobacco was a more important item in its commerce than even cotton, it took no advantage of the opportunity for the manufacture of tobacco,
534
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
cigars, snuff and eigarettes. Several small ventures were made in earlier days, and Mr. Sarrazin secured quite a reputation for the snuff his factory turned out. New Orleans factories also did some business in grinding the famous Perique tobacco of St. James Parish. The city, however, won its importance as a great tobaeeo-manu- facturing eenter first when Mr. S. Hernsheim embarked in the business.
The factory of S. Hernsheim Brothers & Company was founded in 1857 by Simon Hernsheim, and its business has increased steadily since then to the present day, when it stands third in importance in the United States, giving em- ployment to 1,200 hands and being the largest single factory in New Orleans. It turns out a number of famous brands of cigars, among which may be mentioned "La Belle Crcole," "Jackson Square" and "El Belmont," as well as several varieties of tobaceo, and controls the Perique tobacco erop of St. James.
The W. R. Irly braneh of the American Tobacco Company (the tobacco trust) was established in 1872. Between 1875 and 1899 it absorbed no less than a half dozen tobaeeo companies. In 1899 it became a part of the American Tobacco Company.
The People's Tobacco Company, Limited, was organized in 1899, as an inde- pendent company to fight the trust.
The Southern Tobaeco Company, Limited, was organized in 1899, by Mr. Augustus Craft, and others who were crowded out of the tobaeco business by the consolidation of a number of concerns in the trust. It also is independent.
New Orleans, from the start, handled a large part of the eigarette business of the South, and claimed that in the manufacture of cigarettes it did not follow the example of so many of the Northern factories, which doetored the to- bacco with drugs or chemicals, but that, on the contrary, it used only the highest grade and finest tobacco. The fact is that the cigarette habit is very old in New Orleans, a large part of its population having been smokers of Havana cigarettes for years, and they were not inclined to accept drugged eigarettes made with serap or refuse tobacco.
One of the most recent industries of New Orleans and one of its largest is the manufacture of pants and ready-made clothing. The output is estimated at from $7,000,000 to $10,000,000 and is inereasing. It is all of reeent origin, due to the abundance of labor in New Orleans. The industry is in somewhat different shape from that in New York. Sweat shops are almost unknown, and only a very small population, less than one-quarter of the operatives, work in the factories, the others, mainly women, doing their work at home, and, therefore, under more eom-
535
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
fortable conditions. Only a small part of the output is sold in New Orleans, the bulk of it being distributed in the country, from New York, Chicago and other central points. The tendency is in the direction of improvement in the quality of goods turned out: that is, while there has been a large increase in the amount of clothing manufactured, the amount of the cheaper goods remains the same. The average improvement in quality in the output between 1898 and 1900 was 25 per cent and the value 40 per cent.
The manufacture of boots and shoes has shown a similar change of recent years. The boot and shoe industry was large even as early as 1850, and New Orleans manufactured nearly all the shoes it wore, as well as those needed in the tributary country. These, however, were practically all custom-made, and the industry owed its success to the demand for a higher grade of goods than the New England factories turned out, and to the belief that the Southern foot required a different make of shoes, which were made on what were known as "Creole lasts."
The industry has been completely changed of recent years. The "Creole last" has been discarded, and the shoes turned out are of the same size and pattern as are made in other shoe-manufacturing centers. A large proportion of them, however, are factory-made, the most improved machinery being used. The result is that the New Orleans shoemakers, instead of being confined to a very limited territory, are now manufacturing shoes which are shipped to all parts of the South and West and are in great demand everywhere.
The canning of fish, fruits and vegetables is an important industry of New Orleans, which owes its success and prosperity largely to the Dunbars, who have built up the business. The specialties are the canning of oysters, done mainly at Biloxi and other points on Mississippi Sound; of shrimp, of which New Orleans has a practical monopoly ; of figs, orange marmalade and of such syrups as can best be produced in a semi-tropical country. The shrimp industry has reached very large proportions, New Orleans shrimp being shipped to all quarters of the world. Several Chinese colonies are engaged in drying shrimp in the neighborhood of New Orleans, and hundreds of tons of dried shrimp are shipped annually to China, where they are considered a great table delicacy.
The manufacture of beer is one of the more recent industries of New Orleans, with some very serious ups and downs. In ante-bellum days a low-grade article had been manufactured in New Orleans, known as "city beer." In 1882 the Southern Brewery was organized for the manufacture of genuine lager beer,
536
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
and met with such success in supplying not only the local market, but the neighboring States and countries that a number of other breweries were established, with an output far greater than was needed. The Louisiana Brewery was established in 1885, and in 1887 the Pelican, Crescent, Lafayette and Weckerlings breweries (the latter an enlargement of an old establishment). The fact that these breweries manufactured more beer than was needed led to their consolidation in 1890, under the name of the New Orleans Brewing Association, with a capital of $3,100,000. The new association closed the Crescent Brewery in 1893 and the Lafayette Brewery in 1894. The sale of beer by the company greatly increased, from 50,000 barrels in 1885 to 225,000 in 1894 and 240,000 in 1895. The association, however, did not prosper, and in 1895 Mr. A. G. Ricks was appointed receiver. It was liquidated in 1899, when the property was bought in on behalf of the stockholders and reorganized as the New Orleans Brewing Company.
Besides the business belonging to the New Orleans Brewing Company there are several independent concerns, the Jackson, Security, Standard and Columbia brewing companies.
The advantages New Orleans offers for the construction of vessels have long been recognized, but these advantages have never been fully utilized. It has turned out a number of schooners, luggers and smaller vessels and a few large ones, such as transfer and ferryboats, but its boat-building business has been con- fined mainly to repair work. Its docks are located at or near Algiers. The United States has ordered the construction of a large dry dock at that point, has purchased the necessary grounds and made all the required preparations, except to vote sufficient money to complete the works. There are several private docks for the repair of vessels.
The Good Intent Dry Dock Company, Limited, was organized in 1866. Its charter expired in 1891, when the company was reorganized, with its dock at the ferry landing in Algiers. It employs 100 hands.
The Mclellan Dry Dock Company was established in Algiers in 1866, and employs 100 hands. The Marine Dry Dock, formerly at the foot of Bermuda street, Algiers, was removed in 1897 to Tunisburg (now known as Mclellanville), three miles below Algiers; and in 1897 the Ocean Dock was also moved to the same point. In 1897 a sectional steel dock was purchased from the United States Govern- ment at Pensacola, and towed around to McLellanville, where it is now located.
Plans are on foot for the establishment of a large shipyard in New Orleans, but nothing practical has yet been done in that line.
537
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
It is impossible to review at length on the other industries of New Orleans, as the total runs up to 123. They include nearly all kinds of manufacture incident to a great city. Gas, electricity, paint, willowware, umbrellas, pickles, macaroni, trusses, artificial flowers, china and pottery, perfumery, horse collars, patent medicines, mustard, etc. In fine, New Orleans, which forty years ago manu- factured scarcely anything and had to send North for the simplest manufactured articles, now turns out nearly every variety of goods.
The development of manufactories in New Orleans, however, is best shown in the following statistics, which give the number of separate industries, number of factories, employes, wages paid and products, at the several censuses taken in 1870, 1880, and 1890, carried up to 1899 :
No. different
industries. No. factories. Employes.
Wages paid. Total products.
1870
63
554
4,411
$ 1,204,254
$ 8,450,439
1880
89
915
8,404
3,717,557
18,808,906
1890
145
1,960
25,221
10,887,584
48,295,449
1899
183
2,215
37,622
17,116,420
78,820,960
New Orleans is the largest manufacturer of cotton-seed oil in the world and the largest cleaner and preparer of rice, molasses, prepared moss and of various canned goods ; and it holds a high position in the refining of sugar, the manufacture of clothing, cigars and a number of other important industries. Its manufactories now give employment to a much larger proportion of its workers than does com- merce, which was formerly supreme.
CHAPTER XXII.
COMMERCIAL AND MERCANTILE INTERESTS.
BY NORMAN WALKER.
N EW ORLEANS is to-day, and has been for half a century, the second port in the Union, its commerce, imports and exports being exceeded only by those of New York. There was a time whenit promised to be first. This was the dream of Jeffer- son, who, in a message on the purchase of Louisiana, prophesied that the world would see in the capital of this new dominion, New Orleans, the greatest com- mercial entrepot of all times. The author of "The Declaration of Independence" could see far enough ahead to know that the center of population, production and wealth of the American Union would be transferred to the great and fertile valley of the Mississippi, two-thirds of which he had purchased for the United States. As the port of this great valley New Orleans seemed destined for the high position that Jefferson had prophesied for it. He could not, of course, foresee that Stephenson's invention, the railroad, would carry the produce of the great valley over the mountains to New York and other ports on the Atlantic and thus deflect a great deal of business which, in his day and long afterward, it seemed certain that New Orleans would monopolize for all time.
But if New Orleans has not yet secured the commercial supremacy in the Mississippi Valley which Jefferson and the other political economists of his time predicted for it, it has never stood lower than second in commercial importance among American cities; and its commercial history is full of interest and plays a leading part in the story of the continent. Spain, France, England and the United States all saw in New Orleans the key to the great Mississippi Valley, and it played a leading part in the international politics of the eighteenth century. When the United States sprang into existence New Orleans became of even greater commercial and political importance than it had been before the birth of the republic. During the last years of the eighteenth century and the first of the nineteenth the great question of the West and Southwest was which power was to possess New Orleans. We are now able to see how nearly this question broke up
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STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
the new union of States during its infancy, when the people of Kentucky, Tennessee and the other settlers who had poured over the mountains into the Mississippi Valley talked secession loudly and proposed disunion because they thought the Government had neglected their commercial interests, and because they saw their only hope for the future in the possession of New Orleans and the mouths of the Mississippi, which would give them an outlet for their produce. It is unnecessary here, however, to go into the history of the many conspiracies which had for their purpose the separation of the States and Territories of the valley from those of the Atlantic coast, to form with Louisiana a new empire. Jefferson's purchase, accomplished largely in consequence of the European com- plications then prevailing, prevented the establishment of a new republic on American soil, of which New Orleans was to have been the capital and commercial center; but it did not affect its commercial importance; indeed the next forty years raised the Louisiana city to the zenith of its power and importance.
The commercial and mercantile history of New Orleans shows a succession of marked epochs and of great vicissitudes. No city in the world of its importance has witnessed more radical changes in its commercial methods from the early days of pirogues and canocs to this latter age when the great Father of Waters handles only a small share of its business, and the railroads play the leading part in transportation ; yet it has never during all this time, not even during the depression of the Civil War, failed to be a power in the commerce of the world, affecting the trade of both Europe and America.
Just, as in Jefferson's day, the aim of the Government was to secure possession of New Orleans and the outlet of the Mississippi and thus prevent the secession of the Western States, so in the Civil War, Lincoln saw that if New Orleans and the Mississippi remained in the hands of the Confederates it would weaken the loyalty of the trans-Mississippi States and tend to bring about a break-up between the West and East. His first important military movement, therefore, was that directed against New Orleans for the purpose of opening up the Missis- sippi river-a movement in which he was successful, and which played so important a part in weakening the Southern Confederacy and hastening its end.
Throughout the commercial and mercantile history of the nineteenth century the importance of New Orleans comes to the front. It gave its name to the best grade of molasses, and New Orleans molasses (that is, molasses shipped through New Orleans) is known throughout the world. It gave its name to the best grade of cotton-"Orleans ;" and cotton manufacturers everywhere so called the long staple cotton produced on the fertile lands of the Mississippi bottoms.
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