USA > Michigan > A history of the northern peninsula of Michigan and its people, its mining, lumber and agricultural industries, Volume I > Part 63
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Nason and William G. Boswell. The ice came on with such slight warn- ing that Mr. Nason and his family, who were at breakfast in a small house adjoining the mill, had scarcely time to escape before the house was crushed in. The mill was never rebuilt.
The mill long known to Menominee as the Ramsay & Jones mill, that was located between Main street and the Bay shore, north of Quimby street, was first built in the summer of 1860 by Simon Strauss, before then a trader and dealer in merchandise. He run it for two years, when, after considerable loss and much financial difficulty, he closed it down. Thereafter it was purchased, and operated for one year by William MeCartney, who in turn sold it to John L. Bnell. Mr. Buell expended considerable money upon the mill, but failed to make it a success. Later B. Fay and Charles H. Jones operated it for a time and then transferred it to the firm of David H. Jones & Company, who later went into bankruptcy. After its record of failure, it finally, about 1879, was rescued from the bankruptcy wreckage and purchased by Burtin Ramsay and Charles H. JJones, who run it with signal success for quite a term of years, or until their standing timber had been all man- ufactured, when the mill was dismantled, and Mr. Jones moved west, where at Tacoma and Gray's Harbor he is reckoned as among the fore- most of the coast lumbermen. The mill building is now occupied as a factory by D. F. Pover & Company, who manufacture antomobiles.
LUDINGTON, WELLS & VAN SCHAICK COMPANY
In 1863 the first mill of the Ludington, Wells & Van Schaick Com- pany (the second largest lumber company in the county) was built, by R. Stephenson & Company, a partnership composed of Daniel Wells, Jr., of Milwaukee, Harrison Ludington, Isaac Stephenson and Robert Stephenson; and the mill was then said to be the best on the river. The following year, June 14, 1864, the mill was totally destroyed by fire, but in fifty-four days from that date a still better mill took its place, and was equipped and ready to run, this quick construction having been ac- complished under the direction of millwright William E. Bagley. In 1866 Anthony G. Van Schaiek purchased the interest of Isaac Stephen- son. In 1874 the owners of the property placed the title in the corpora- tion, which so long remained prominently identified with lumber and other interests of Menominee. The first officers of the company were Harrison Ludington, president ; Daniel Wells, Jr., vice-president; An- thony G. Van Schaick, secretary and treasurer, and Robert Stephenson, superintendent.
In 1871 the company acquired its second mill, on the point at the mouth of the river, that had been known as the Gilmore mill; but the mill was burned in the great fire of that year, after the purchase but be- fore the transfer of possession. The company promptly constructed a new and larger mill on the newly acquired site, having a sawing capae- ity of 22,000,000 feet of lumber per year, and its two mills then for- nished it an aggregate sawing capacity of 35,000,000 feet per annum,
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which was quite fully utilized except in case of a depression in lumber, such as was experienced in the panic of 1873. In the year 1875 business had revived to a large extent, and the cut of the company's new mill that year was 21,954.792 feet of lumber, 4,058,940 lath, and 153.450 pickets, while its log input for the ensuing year was 29,458,163 feet, board measure. This company also kept a large grocery store, which was a source of considerable profit, its sales running on an average of about $60,000 per year. Its land hoklings, located in the two states amounted to more than 75,000 acres. The new mill was again destroyed by fire about 1880, and was again promptly rebuilt, and the company continued to operate the two mills until the pine timber owned by it had all been manufactured, when it wound up its business here, and trans- ferred its operations to Ludington, Louisiana, where it now operates a lumber plant upon a large scale and has acquired vast traets of valua- ble timber lands. Robert Stephenson, familiarly known as "Bob," was mill superintendent and had general charge of both mills, up to the time of his death, when his mantle of office fell upon his son, Isaac Stephenson, Jr., who, though but a very young man for so responsible a position, was born to the work, and assumed his duties as a sort of second nature. Isaac, Jr., like his father, is of a genial disposition, and has hosts of friends. He is now superintendent in charge of the com- pany's affairs in Louisiana.
Of the many good citizens who have been connected with the opera- tions, there come to mind the two Andys-Andrew Stephenson. woods superintendent, and Andrew Gram, machinist, both of whom served the company faithfully throughout nearly the whole period of its opera- tions, and both of whom are now hale, hearty and highly respected citizens.
OTHER OLD PINE LUMBER MILLS
The Ingallston mill, built in the town of that name, about twelve miles north of Menominee, and on the Bay shore, was built in 1866, by Eleazer S., and Charles B. Ingalls, but the entire title was acquired by Charles about a year thereafter. The mill was operated variously by the firm of Carter & Jones, and Jesse L. Hamilton, and it was finally burned in 1874 and never rebuilt.
At Wallace, a station on the Chicago & Northwestern Railway, six- teen miles north of Menominee, in the heart of a splendid white pine section, Mellen Smith operated several mills, successively one after an- other, as fires destroyed them for a long term of years following his start at that point about 1873, and after his death, his son Charles Smith continued the business until the adjacent timber was practically all cut, when, with his family, he went south and now lives in or near Houston, Texas.
The mill of the Girard Lumber Company was built on the bay shore in the northern part of the village, by John W. Wells, in 1875, and from that time made almost a continuous run until its destruction by
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fire in 1909. The corporation was composed of William B. Culbertson of Girard, Pennsylvania, and his sons, James A. and Charles B. Cul- bertson, and John W. Wells, and the operations of the mill were under the general charge and management of Mr. Wells from the beginning. It had a capacity of about 25,000,000 feet of lumber and 2,500,000 lath per annum. In 1903, when a number of the lumber corporations were going out of husiness, the Girard Lumber Company was succeeded by the J. W. Wells Lumber Company, of which mention will be made later.
The mill of the Menominee Bay Shore Lumber Company was con- structed in 1881 on the Bay shore just south of the Girard Lumber Company's mill, and between that and the property of the Menominee Furnace Company. The incorporators of the company were Stephen C. Hall, of Muskegon, Michigan, and James A. Crozer and Wilmot A. Armstrong, both of Menominee, and the mill was successfully operated under their management until 1888, when the company was re-organ- ized and passed into the control of Messrs. A. C. and James P. Soper of Chicago, Michael J. Quinlan and Harry E. McGraw. The mill was at this time overhauled and thoroughly rehuilt to a capacity of 150,000 feet of lumber, 50,000 lath and 200,000 shingles in ten hours. It was run under the active management of Mr. Quinlan as superintendent, and H. E. MeGraw as secretary and bookkeeper, until about the year 1903. when the business of the company was transferred to Soperton, Wisconsin, where it is now extensively engaged in lumbering with a modern, up-to-date plant.
The mill of the present A. Spies Lumber & Cedar Company was built by Hon. Augustus Spies and Henry E. Martin, in 1880. Prior to that time Mr. Spies had conducted a grocery store and meat market for nearly fifteen years in the building at the corner of Main street and Ludington avenue, and during that period had made judicious invest- ments in pine lands until his holdings had become such as to warrant the construction. Mr. Martin had for many years been bookkeeper for the Ludington, Wells & Van Sehaick Company, and had beecome fa- miliar with many features of the lumber business. The mill is not a large one, but it has been run with continued success, and a handsome profit. It is located on the Bay shore, just north of the location of the Girard Lumber Company's mill. In 1903 the corporation named above was organized and took over the business that had then, for some years, heen the sole property of Mr. Spies. It was practically a family affair, with Mr. Augustus Spies, as president, his son Frank A. Spies, vice- president, and his son-in-law, David G. Bothwell, as secretary. The mill is still in operation, with a capacity of over 15,000,000 feet of lumber per year.
Of other mills that were constructed and in operation in the palmy days of pine lumhering, there was that of the Detroit Lumber Com- pany, located on the Bay shore, somewhat sonth of the Leisen & Henes brewery, of which mill E. P. Barnard was general manager, and in the business of which our former townsmen, Fred K. Baker and Alfred
Vol. 1-37
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W. Clark, now prominent and successful Pacific coast lumbermen, re- ceived their business education ; the mill of Peters & Morrison, a part- nership composed of Richard G. Peters and Finlay A. Morrison, located on the Bay shore near where the Lloyd factory now stands; and the mill of the Blodgett & Davis Lumber Company, often called the "Island Mill." from its having been built on a small island near the shore, but which has been made a part of the mainland by filling. This mill was adjacent to that of Peters & Morrison. It was first constructed by the Doherty & Baars Lumber Company, composed of James A. Doherty and Geo. S. Baars, who operated it for a short time, when John D. Blod- gett and Warren F. N. Davis purchased the corporate stock and changed the company name.
Smith & Daley, a co-partnership composed of Thomas H. Smith, then of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, and our townsman, Denis F. Daley, built a shingle mill in the late eighties at the most northerly location of any of the Menominee shore mills, and on the site of the present mill of the Menominee River Shingle Company. This mill was destroyed by fire in 1889, entailing a loss of $40,000. In 1892 the Menominee River Shingle Company was incorporated, and, under the management of Mr. Daley, a fine new mill was constructed upon the site of the one that had burned. This new mill had a capactiy of 300 cedar railroad ties, 180,000 shingles and a large number of posts per day. It is still in operation.
ZENITH LUMBER YEARS 1889-90
Other mills were built later, but before their coming the zenith year of the lumber business in Menominee had been reached, and, that having been the one great and all-absorbing industry of the locality, we pause to take a bird's-eye view thereof at that time. It was the year 1889, and there were then twenty-three steam lumber mills in operation at the mouth of the river, eleven of which were in Marinette, Wisconsin, and twelve in Menominee. The music of the whistles of these twenty-three mills as they sent forth their morning call "to work," and their more welcome midday and evening closing signals, will never be forgotten by any twin-city resident of those days.
The following statistical table is a comprehensive showing of the names of the companies and parties then operating; the amount manu- factured by each Menominee concern, and the approximate value thereof, as well as the amount of logs handled by the Boom Company that year, and the amount thereof that went to the mills of the respective cities, and that went elsewhere:
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FIRM
LUMBER LATH
SHINGLES LUMBER
PLANED
Kirby, Carpenter Company, three
mills
95,250,439
11,198,500
25,540,000
35,842,830
Ludington. Wells & Van Schaick
Company, two mills.
55,220,000
16,207,000
23,234,000
11,998,207
Ramsay & Jones
17,136,545
2,963,000
3,580,000
Peters & Morrison
24,000,000
54,000,000
Bay Shore Lumber Co.
31,250,000
9,250,000
19,750,000
Girard Lumber Co ..
23,000,263
2,429,050
Detroit Lumber Co ..
28.112,000
A. Spies
15,000,000
3,000,000
5,000,000
Blodgett & Davis Lumber Co.
43,500,000
+5,047,550
131,104,000
$4.237,982.89
Value of lath at $1.75 per M ..
78.833,21
Value of shingles at $2.00 per M.
262.208.00
Total
$4,579.024.10
BOOM COMPANY
Amount of logs (in feet) passed through the boom in 1889 ..
642,137,318
Amount sawn in Menominee.
.332,469,247
Amount sawn in Marinette, about.
250,000,000
Amount towed away in the log, about.
.59,668,071
642,137,318
Further, in connection with the lumber business of Menominee in 1890, and its comparison with that of 1880, we quote from Extra Cen- sus Bulletin No. 5. issued by the department of the interior, Washing- ton, District of Columbia, from a report dated July, 1891, upon the lumber industries of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, extracts as follows :
"Michigan is the greatest lumber-producing state in the Union. The value of its lumber produet, with that of Wisconsin and Minne- sota, exceeds one-third of the total value of all the lumber manufac- tured in the United States. This enormous development of the lumber business in the lake region is due to the excellence of its forests, the nat- ural advantages of the country for manufacturing lumber, and the easy means of communication between these forests and the treeless agricul- tural region west of the Mississippi river.
"The city of Menomince, at the mouth of the Menominee river, in Michigan, shows the greatest inerease of production during the decade. In 1880 it ranked sixth in the nine principal lumber producing points in the United States, and is now found to be the second." (The port of Menomine, including Menominee and Marinette, was the largest in the world.) The aggregate value of production reported for Menominee (Michigan) and Marinette (Wisconsin) was $2,536,168 in 1880, and $6.629.580 in 1890. The aggregate quantity of material consumed at these points during the census year 1890 was about 450,000,000 feet, scaled measure. The average annual term of employment for mill em- ployes is found by the reports for 1890 to be 7.11 months in Michigan, 6.43 in Wisconsin, and 5.92 months in Minnesota.
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Total twelve Menominee Mills. 332.469,247
Value of lumber at $12.75 per M
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THE NORTHERN PENINSULA OF MICHIGAN
"Comparative statement showing totals of capital invested and value of production, etc. :
"Number of establishments $ 1880
1 1890
23
Capital invested.
1880
$1.492,000
1890
$8,775,709
Lumber (feet board measure)
1890
1880
62.532,000
Shingles ( number)
1890
165,821,000
Value of all other mill products
1890
$197,126
1880
Value of remanufactures.
1890
746,236
1880
1,916,163
Total value of mill products and manufacturers.
1890
5,190,963
"A marked increase is noted in the Upper Peninsula, which ad- vances 12.81 per cent in its ratio to the entire product, and shows an increase over its produet for 1880 of 279.29 per cent." The lumber in- dustries of Menominee then employed about three thousand men.
OTHER INDUSTRIES-TRADE-PROFESSIONS
It might naturally be supposed that such an extensive lumbering business would bring to the manufacturing center a very large and diversified number of trading and merchandising establishments, but the fact that the two large concerns, the Kirby, Carpenter Company, and the Ludington, Wells & Van Schaick Company, whose combined ent of lumber was nearly half of all the lumber cut in Menominee, had general stores well stocked (which condition also applied to the large companies in Marinette), furnishes the reason that there were not many more and much larger independent stores. Menominee was, however, a thriving and prosperous burg, and in addition to the lumber manu- factured, as shown by the foregoing tables, there was quite an extensive traffic in cedar produets, such as poles, ties and posts. which left the varions railway stations, and lake ports of Menominee county by train and boat loads.
The fishing industry of the entire Menominee county bay shore amounted to about 10,000 packages annually. The paper industry had then made a fair beginning; a reasonable complement of stores fur- nished all the necessaries, and a fair seasoning of Inxuries, while the proud young city had a fine sewerage system, an electric street railway system, a substantial water supply with ample fire protection, a good hospital, unmerons churches, and excellent schools. The assessed valna- tion of the city was, in 1889, $2,427,862.00, though the actual value was about three times that amount or approximately $7,500,000.
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1880 169,944,000 336,390,000
1880
$65,450
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THE NORTHERN PENINSULA OF MICHIGAN
The representative business houses of the city, at that time, aside from the lumber concerns mentioned, were as follows: First National Bank ; the Lumbermen's National Bank ; Forvilly House. Max Forvilly, proprietor; Erdlitz Hotel. Frank Erdlitz, proprietor; National Hotel, A. A. Juttner, proprietor; S. M. Stephenson Hotel, S. M. Stephenson, proprietor ; John Joiner & Co., clothing store; Menomince Hardware Company, general hardware; Childs & Sawyer; and Philip Harter, boots and shoes; Underwood & Coman, D. F. Smith, W. H. Whittemore & Company, McCormick Brothers, W. D. Ren, J. II. Madden, and John Fish, huber inspectors and shippers; W. M. MePherson & Co., whole- sale lumber, lath and shingles; Geo. MeKinney & Co., wholesale and re- tail lumber, lath and shingles; M. Il. Kern, furniture dealer; Pauli & Seidl, clothing and furnishing: A. Bloch, dry goods; Peter Sibenaler, furniture and undertaking; Hubbard Saw & Tool Co., saw and tool fac- tory; Dunning Bros. & Company, W. B. Gage, and Jacob Oehrling, hardware; Soults & O'Donnell, publishers of the Evening Leader; H. O. Fifield, publishers of the Menominee Herald; G. A. Woodford, watches and jewelry ; J. W. Campbell & Company, drapers and tailors; A. B. Stryker, cigar manufacturer; Fernstrøm & Fred, boiler manufac- turers; Crawford Manufacturing Company, box manufacturers; Serva- tius Bothers, meat maket ; Packard, Leisen & Blom, real estate and ab- stracts; A. Z. Bird and W. D. Hutchinson, groceries; Somerville Pen- berthy & Cook, wholesale grocers; T. S. Hutchinson & Son, wall paper, paints and oils ; Franklin H. Brown, theatre, real estate and insurance; Joseph Flesheim, real estate und insurance ; W. A. Pengilly, crockery, books, stationery, etc .; Leisen & Henes Brewing Company, brewers; Jo- seph Wunek, harness and saddlery; R. J. Sawyer, H. A. Vennema, M. D., and Adolph Paalzow, druggists.
The legal profession was represented by Benjamin J. Brown, Alvah L. Sawyer, Byron S. Waite, William H. Phillips, Lewis D. Eastman, John M. Opsahl, and Charles Line, and the medical profession by Drs. Benj. T. Phillips, Robert G. Morrison, Eugene Grignon, Henry A. Ven- nema. A. J. Rosenberry, J. F. Hicks and W. R. Hicks.
Mention should be made that, in 1872, at the time of connecting Menominee with the Marquette Iron Range, by rail, a charcoal blast furnace was constructed on the Bay shore, in the northern part of the village of Menominee, by the Menominee Furnace Company, in which Arthur B. Mecker, of Chicago was the moving spirit. It had a checkered career of about eight years when it was finally abandoned. Culbert Sprong, well remembered by many, was lessee of the furnace during the last of its operations. Numerous sets of brick and stone charcoal kilns were constructed at various places throughout the county wherein great quantities of hard wood were reduced to charcoal to supply the needs of the furnace.
With the large number of mills that were operating when the lum- bering industries of the Menominee reached their climax, the annual inroads into the forests of standing pine became only too perceptible,
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and it was not long before the big concerns began to contemplate the end. The panie of 1893 retarded matters to some extent, but even then the end of the century saw the pine forests of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and especially of the Menominee valley, practically depleted, which in the report of the department of the interior of 1891, scarcely ten years before, had been reported as practically inexhaustible. In that year a writer on the Inmbering interests of Menominee said: "The pres- ent generation of lumbermen will bequeath to their successors a long battle with the tall, strong trees that bear such a splendidly potential harvest of dollars." And yet, within a single decade had that illimitable forest vanished before the insatiable appetites of the monster mills, and the greed for gain that sermed to rule the world. With the inaugura- tion of the twentieth century the great mills began their dismantling process and today the lumbering industry is one of, but not the only important industry of Menominee.
THE TRANSITION PERIOD
For the past decade Menominee has been in a transition period. The going of the mills carried to the lumber regions of the Gulf and the Pacific coast states large numbers of our Iumbermen, and of their employes and families, as well as of the inspectors and shippers that must find their abode in active lumber centers.
In turn our patriotie citizens have been alert, and, mindful of the essential loss of Inmber population that must come as the result of the closing the mills. Other industries have been established with local capital, and new plants have been invited and received from without to replace, in considerable part, the loss of the mills. The Commercial Club is active in the interests of the city, and some of the men who made their capital here in Inmber and other industries have shown their patriotism in a marked degree by investing it here in other enterprises that tend to the public welfare. Notable among the class mentioned, and to whom is dne a just recognition, are Angustus Spies, John W. Wells, William Holmes, John Henes and the families of Samuel M. Stephenson and William O. Carpenter.
PRESENT POPULATION AND MATERIAL CONDITIONS
While the census of 1910 shows in Menominee connty a loss of pop- ulation in the preceding decade, that is accounted for by the sudden decrease in the Inmber industries and only the gradual increase of other industries.
A review of the situation as it is at present, however, notwithstand- ing the fact that the present industries support a smaller population, reveals the pleasant realization that in material wealth Menominee has been steadily on the gain, and this is casily realized when we consider that more skilled labor is employed in present industries than was the case in the saw-mills. A part of the variance in population is further accounted for by the fact that some of our more recent industries such
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COURT HOUSE, MENOMINEE
HIGH SCHOOL. MENOMINEE
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as the Iron Works and the Electrical Works, employ large numbers of men, who, having had their homes in Marinette, still reside there with their families, and it is estimated that nearly a thousand citizens of Marinette are supported by pay-rolls of Menominee industries; hence the discrepancy between the change in population and that in business.
The actual situation of a locality is best revealed by the condition of its representative business establishments. It is not within the scope of this work to review the business establishments in detail, or even to mention all, but certain representative establishments indicate the pulse of the community, and of those it is proper to speak as the best record of conditions and progress ;- the best history. Probably no institu- tions better represent the trade and financial conditions of a community than do its banks. The business of Menominee's substantial banks speaks volumes in evidence of the real material prosperity and progress of the community, and it is a pleasure to write of them; not only of their records that show conditions, but briefly of their history.
The First National Bank is the oldest banking house in the county. A list of its incorporators reveals the names of many who have had much to do with the welfare of the city, to which this institution has always been an acknowledged credit. It was organized in 1884. and opened its doors to the public in November of that year. There were present at the organization the following named gentlemen: A. C. Brown, Rufus B. Kellogg. S. M. Stephenson, A. Spies, J. A. Culbertson. C. H. Jones. W. JJ. Fisk, Isaac Stephenson, James A. Crozer. Jos. Fleshiem, John Hones, James H. Walton, J. W. P. Lombard, I. Ste- phenson. Jr., Harrison Ludington. G. A. Woodford, Lonis Young and G. A. Blesch. At the start the bank had an anthorized capital of $50,000 and $25,000 surplus. This was increased, ont of the earnings, to $100,000 on January 1, 1890, and further increased, from the same source, to $200.000 on October 1, 1904. The present surplus is $50,000. The progressive increase of its deposits is indicated by the following figures: January 1. 1885. $46.000; January 1. 1895. $561.000; Jannary 1. 1905, $899,000; and Jannary 1, 1911. $1,064,000. This bank was appointed United States Depository in 1900, and all the internal rev- enue receipts for Dickinson, Delta and Menominee connties have since that time passed through it. The savings department was started in May. 1891, and since that time over four thonsand savings accounts have been opened. The showing of increase in deposits during the transition period in the business of the city speaks volumes for the prosperity of present local industries.
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