USA > Minnesota > Stearns County > History of Stearns County, Minnesota, Volume I > Part 65
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Hilder Granite Company. Julius G. Hilder was early engaged in the granite business at St. Cloud, having begun in 1886. He conducted it alone until May, 1914, when the firm of Hilder & McGregor was organized. In the following September the Hilder Granite Company was incorporated, the members being Julius Hilder, and Daniel A., Guy H., Murray and Frank E. McGregor (railroad contractors). The business includes monumental work, building stone, curbing, paving stones, and crushed granite. The plant is equipped with up-to-date machinery, the power used being electric, steam and compressed air. An average of 40 men are employed, whose wages for the last four months of 1914 were $9,500.
Sauk Rapids Granite Company. This company was organized April 13, 1911, with a capital of $18,000, the officers being: James Misho, president ; C. C. Dragoo, secretary and treasurer. It operated until May, 1914, employing on the average 35 men and paying out approximately $22,000 a year for labor. At the date last named the capital stock was increased to $300,000, with a reorganization as follows: George W. Bestor, of Minneapolis, president and treasurer ; C. C. Dragoo, of St. Cloud, vice-president and assistant treasurer ; E. R. Kelm, of Sauk Rapids, secretary. Since the reorganization the company has acquired four granite quarries, which it is now developing, employing approximately 75 men in this work. After January 1, 1915, it is expected that from 150 to 200 men will be on the pay roll, with wages running from $100,000 to $125,000 per year. All the plants are on the company's own railroad (51/2 miles), on which it has its own locomotive and does its own switching. The quarries are operated by electric current received from the Union Power Company at St. Cloud. Among the more important pieces of work turned out by this company was the crematory and chapel for the Forest Lawn Cemetery at Omaha, Neb., regarded as the finest piece of monu- mental work ever sent from the St. Cloud distriet, $30,000 worth of granite being used in its construction.
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Simeon A. Jones has been actively engaged in the granite industry at St. Cloud since 1886, manufacturing building, bridge and monumental work from St. Cloud granite. Material has been furnished for the Minnesota State Capitol, Nebraska State Capitol, United States post office at Omaha, Neb., Hinckley State Monument, and erected a statue to the late Col. J. H. Stevens, the first settler at Minneapolis, employs 30 men, whose annual wages are $20,000.
M. E. Jones located in St. Cloud in 1889, and afterwards had charge of the monumental department of the Walter Arnold Granite Works, assisting at this time in erecting a monument, 52 feet 9 inches high, near Hinckley, where in four trenches laid the bodies of 480 victims of the forest fires of 1893. Some three years afterward engaged in the retail monumental business at St. Cloud, with his brother S. A. Jones, the partnership continuing until 1910 when the plant was destroyed by fire. The firm then dissolved, each member continuing in business separately. Has erected a number of Grand Army and other handsome monuments, among the latter being a monument at Humboldt, Iowa, for Frank Gotch, known as the strongest man in the world. The plant is equipped with all necessary modern machinery, doing only finishing work, employing the past year eight men, whose wages were $12,000.
John Kellas. Started business in St. Cloud in 1892, making paving blocks and monumental work. Employed an average of ten men during the past year, paying quarrymen $2.25 per day of eight hours, and paving cutters 41/4 cents per block. Has steam hoist and derrick, steam and air drills. Mr. Kellas came to St. Cloud in June, 1882, to work on the first granite paving contract let in the Twin Cities, taken by Breen & Young and sublet to James Kellas and John Fraser. These blocks were used on the Hennepin avenue, Minneapolis, street car line.
L. E. Noren began operating in granite work at St. Cloud in 1889, his lines being monumental and paving. He employed during the past year eight men, their wages totaling $5,000.
Robert Milne opened a shop in St. Cloud for monumental work in 1889. Employs three men, whose annual wages amount to $2,000. Among other monuments specially worthy of notice which have been erected are the Mc- Ewen monument in Forest Hill Cemetery, Duluth, and the Becker monu- ment in North Star Cemetery, St. Cloud.
Streitz Brothers. Joseph M. and John L. Streitz began business under the above name November 15, 1907. They employ an average of six men, with wages $4,670. The work is mostly monumental, some building stone being turned out. Have a steam outfit, with air compressor and modern tools.
R. Yaeger & Son. This firm is composed of Rud. and Charles J. Yaeger, who began business in November, 1912, their work being entirely monumental. The average number of men employed the past year was 10, whose wages amounted to between $8,000 and $10,000. Among other important pieces of work turned out was a monument sent to Wibaux, Montana. Electric power is used with a full outfit of surfacing and polishing machinery, air compressor and pneumatic tools.
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Clark & McCormack. The plant of this company, located at Rockville, on the St. Cloud and Willmar branch of the Great Northern Railway, is the largest in the county. It has a very extensive and valuable quarry of the gray granite and is equipped to handle contracts of almost any size along build- ing lines. The members of the firm are John Clark and J. B. McCormack, the partnership dating from April 13, 1906. One hundred men are employed on an average during the year, their wages amounting to about $60,000. Among the more notable buildings for which it has furnished the granite are the St. Paul cathedral and the Minneapolis pro-cathedral, also the handsome columns in the interior of the chapel of the Benedictine Convent at St. Joseph, this county.
Central Minnesota Granite Works. Preparations are completed for the opening of another granite producing plant at the beginning of the new year, to have this name. The proprietors are A. E. Hagquist and Fred Hagquist. The senior member of the company is an experienced granite man, having been one of the original stockholders of the St. Cloud Granite Company and was later connected with the Granite City Granite Company. The new plant will be equipped with the latest improved machinery.
There are a number of other producers, most of whom operate on a small scale, but whose output would add materially to the total.
MANUFACTURERS' ASSOCIATION
Northwestern Granite Manufacturers' Association. The granite produc- ers of St. Cloud met at the Grand Central Hotel June 10, 1890, and organized the Northern Granite Producers' Association, electing officers as follows: Thomas Breen, president; Walter Arnold, vice-president; W. J. Holes, sec- retary. Meetings were held with more or less regularity during the two suc- ceeding years, but without any subsequent election of officers, and then its activities ceased.
A later organization was formed December 20, 1901, and whether the gen- eral conditions were more favorable or the importance of maintaining an asso- ciation of this character was more fully realized, it has had a sturdy and satisfactory existence, being stronger today than ever before. The name is that given above, and the first officers were: W. J. Holes, president; William Campbell, vice-president; F. T. Davis, secretary; A. M. Simmers, treasurer. The firms represented at the first meeting were Holes Bros., St. Cloud Granite Company, Simmers & Campbell, Brooks Granite Company, L. Noreen & Son, Misho Brothers, Rockville Granite Company, George Bloxam, Northwestern Granite Company, G. J. Hilder and Robert Milne. The officers for 1914 are : William Shields, president; Alvin Anderson, vice-president; A. M. Simmers, secretary ; Charles P. Ahlgren, treasurer.
This association, which now includes in its membership practically all of the leading granite producers in the St. Cloud district, besides holding its regular business meetings has an annual banquet, which is attended not only by representatives of the different plants, but by a number of invited guests, including local city officials and business men, prominent outside representa- tives of the trade, railway officials and others. The attitude of the Manufac-
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turers' Association is one of cordial co-operation and friendliness toward the general development of the business. Underhanded, cut-throat operations to ruin competitors are not tolerated. It is believed that what is for the good of one is for the good of all, and what is for the good of the granite industry is for the good of St. Cloud and such other localities as may be directly inter- ested. At these annual social gatherings a review of the year's business is given, the figures presented being both interesting and valuable. The ban- quet for 1914 was held at the Commercial Club rooms in St. Cloud on the evening of December 30. The report of Secretary A. M. Simmers showed that the total value of production from the St. Cloud quarries during 1914 was $1,015,415 as against $1,009,338 in 1913. The report also showed that in 1914, 2,445 people were directly supported by the granite industry as against 2,421 in 1913; that in 1914 1,147,000 paving blocks were shipped with a value of $90,000, an increase of $10,000 over 1913; that the building work shipped in 1914 amounted to $140,000, a decrease of $35,000 from the figures for 1913; that the monumental work shipped in 1914 was valued at $785,415, an increase over 1913 of $31,077.
In commenting on this report W. J. Holes, the toastmaster, said: "De- spite the business depression for five month of this year, when factories were retrenching, railroad extensions at a standstill and the big steel mills shut down, the granite industry in St. Cloud has exceeded its total production of the prosperous year of 1913. Only the push and energy of our members could have made this possible."
TEXTURE AND COLOR.
In a paper on the Building Stones of Minnesota, published in Volume I of the Geological Survey of Minnesota, Professor A. N. Winchell, state geolo- gist, speaks at length on the granites of St. Cloud and Sauk Rapids. From that paper the following paragraphs are taken :
"The East St. Cloud stone, now generally used, is of a gray color and uniform texture. The crystalline grains are rather fine, so that the texture is close. The color, however, is disturbed sometimes by the sudden appearance of greenish spots of the size of butternuts, or even as large as six inches in diameter, caused by the abundance of a greenish, rather softer, mineral ; which seems to imply that the whole rock was originally a conglomerate con- taining rounded pebbles and stones of different composition, and that, on metamorphic crystallization, some of the pebbles refused to become wholly obliterated or absorbed into the homogeneous mass. Some of these may be seen in the water-table of the union depot building at St. Paul. In the most of the rock, however, these spots are not seen; and this is particularly true of the quarries at Sauk Rapids.
"The fine-grained gray granite consists largely of quartz, embraced in a matrix of orthoclase, with but a small proportion of mica or chlorite. The dark mica is biotite, and there is but occasionally a grain of hornblende. This last sometimes prevails largely over all the other minerals in small areas or veins, making a very dark-colored, and also generally a coarser-grained, rock.
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There is also occasionally a grain of triclinic feldspar and of magnetite and somne minute crystals of pyrite.
"These minerals have a relative hardness when expressed on the seale of ten, as follows, seven being the hardness of an ordinary knife-blade, and one the hardness of soapstone : Quartz, 7; trielinie feldspar, 6-7; orthoelase, 6-61/2 ; hornblende, 5-6; biotite, 21/2-3; muscovite, 2-21/2; elilorite, 1-2.
"About one-third of the whole rock is made up of quartz and two-thirds of the remainder of orthoelase. About one-half of the rest is hornblende, and the residue is divided between the other minerals, ehlorite predominating. The minerals biotite, museovite and chlorite, which make the crystalline roek easier to eut, are, in this roek, arranged sometimes with their cleavage sur- faces prevailing in one direction, or lie in belts, giving a faintly striped aspeet, constituting gneiss, and mueh facilitating the operations of the quarry by giv- ing the stone a "rift" so-called, the beds being from eight inehes to five feet thiek. These minerals, however, in mueh of this variety of the East St. Cloud rocks, are evenly scattered through the whole rock, rendering it as a mass slightly softer, but requiring the guidance of the plug-and-feather in redue- ing the large blocks to sizeable and desired dimensions.
"The composition of the red syenite from East St. Cloud is not very different from the foregoing, but the feldspar is mainly flesh-red, and all the grains are coarser. It also has a higher percentage of silica, a fact that has been discovered practically by the owners who have given up the general use of it because of its being more costly to work. In some of the outerops west of St. Cloud, in Stearns county, it becomes eoarser-grained, somewhat resembling the red Seotch granites imported to the United States. In the winter of 1874-5 a block weighing ten tons was taken out of the red granite quarry about three miles west of St. Cloud for a monument base. It was polished at St. Cloud and was delivered to its purchaser at Chicago. This was very fine and greatly resembled the Scotch granite in color, grain and polish. At the point where this was taken out the granite rises about twenty feet above the general surface and spreads over more than an aere. A similar red granite, found at Watab, has furnished several handsome monuments, some of which were put on exhibition at the Centennial Exposition of 1876, at Philadelphia, by Mr. Gurney, the owner.
"The other gray granite which is found at the East St. Cloud quarries has been notieed at several other places, and it is probably largely distributed wherever the red granites are found. In some places it passes by a gradual change into the red, in such a way as to suggest that the whole was originally gray, and that the red color has been superinduced since its formation by some difference of exposure to the elements. The true composition of this roek is not readily ascertained by simple ocular inspection, since the quartz and the feldspar are very similar in color and luster. When freshly quarried they both appear glassy; the cleavage of the feldspar is not evident, though that mineral exhibits an irregular parting or stepstone fracture, and when in compact mass it seems to be translucent. Hence the general aspect is very much like that of the gabbro of Duluth when freshly quarried. It has a clear, bluish-gray, uniform color, and is feebly translucent. The whole con-
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tent of silica in this rock is 74.72 per cent, being a little more than that in the red syenite, and for the same reason it has ceased to be wrought at East St. Cloud.
"At East St. Cloud and Watab there is still another variety of syenite, which, however, is probably only a coarser crystalline condition of the fine- grained gray syenite, since on analysis it has about the same content of silica, alumina and iron. It contains more lime and magnesia, but less potash and soda. It consists essentially of the minerals quartz, orthoclase, plagioclase, hornblende and biotite. At East St. Cloud this rock was opened by Messrs. Saulpaugh Brothers in 1881, for use in the Northern Pacific railroad bridge at Bismarck over the Missouri river.
"The granites of Minnesota are adaptable to a wide range of architec- ture. That which is most used from St. Cloud is of a neutral gray color, of rather fine, inconspicuously granular texture, and has a resisting strength of over twenty-five thousand pounds per square inch. It resists fire and the sudden cooling produced by cold water thrown upon it, better than the more quartzose, and more coarsely granular rocks quarried at East St. Cloud and Watab. The other varieties, however, are more showy in construction, on account of their lighter color as well as their more close crystalline texture. Some of them will take and preserve a better polish, and are to be preferred for that reason for fine work, such as monuments or tablets, and for all inside trimmings.
"These crystalline rocks have been used in some of the principal build- ings in St. Paul and Minneapolis for trimmings, and have been sent for the same purpose to several other cities, particularly to Milwaukee, Chicago and Des Moines. At Sauk Rapids the fine-grained gray syenite is made into monuments. Stone from the Sauk Rapids quarries was used in the trimmings of the state capitol at Des Moines, and constitutes the entire front wall of the block of Nicols & Dean, at St. Paul. It is used for paving at Minneapolis and St. Paul. The trimmings of the United States custom house and post office at St. Paul were taken from the East St. Cloud quarries, and embrace all the principal varieties there found. Much of the stone put into the bridge over the Missouri river at Bismarck for the Northern Pacific Railroad came from East St. Cloud, but at a point further southeast than the quarries of Breen & Young, and consists of another variety of syenite."
IMPORTANCE AND POSSIBILITIES.
In a published article on Minnesota Building Stone Professor Emmons, of the department of gcology in the University of Minnesota, called atten- tion especially to the granite produced at the St. Cloud and Ortonville quar- rics. The following extracts from his article will be of interest:
"If we mistake not, the next ten years will witness important develop- ments of the building and monumental stone resources of Minnesota, and this business, when developed more fully and exploited as it should be, will spread the fame of the state as it never has been spread before.
"Minnesota has a wealth of building stone, particularly of the harder and more ornamental varieties, that can defy competition. One has only
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to study the interior of the capitol to appreciate the state's wealth in orna- mental stone. It is a lasting pity that the exterior of the capitol was not built of native stone, and that Minnesota quarries were not drawn upon more freely for other large public buildings throughout the state. Tennessee marble is being used in the new public library in St. Paul, and Vermont granite in our own art museum. Of the half-dozen great churches built in the Twin Cities in recent years, only two, we believe, used Minnesota stone.
"The old main building of the University of Minnesota was constructed of local limestone, as were many of the early public, business and home build- ings. In the new building era of the university, brick has taken the place of stone and even Bedford stone has replaced Minnesota stone for trimining. Minnesota, it seems, cannot afford her best granites for her own monumental buildings.
"The minute a tool is put on a block of granite, that minute its cost begins to multiply. That is one reason why Minnesota granite of superior quality, even with cheaper freight, cannot compete with Vermont or Tennessee marbles, or even with their granites. As yet, Minnesota quarrymen are not equipped to compete with the others in dressing stone; and some do not even have adequate shipping facilities.
"The day is coming when Kasota stone and St. Cloud granite will be shipped in self-propelled river barges; when the quarries will be equipped with as good dressing machinery as any other quarry; when the St. Cloud quarries will increase their output from $1,000,000 annually, what it is now, to many millions; and when Minneapolis will be a clearing house for Minne- sota stone as it is for lumber and grain."
The following extracts are taken from an extended and fully illustrated article on the Granite Industry of St. Cloud which appeared in the October number of the Chicago Reporter, a publication devoted exclusively to the granite and marble monumental trade, this article having been prepared by a member of that paper's staff, after a personal visit to the quarries and fin- ishing plants in this city and vicinity :
"St. Cloud. 'Busy, gritty, granite city,' as the official trademark of the city says. And truly, it is a busy place, at least in the granite industry, which is the feature of its activities in which we are interested.
"Started later than the eastern plants, there is a total absence of the old- fashioned circular 'sheds' still to be found in the east, the buildings being of the modern straight type, generally with a lean-to or an ell for the office, engine and supply rooms. Nearly all the plants are arranged for the most economical handling of stock in its progressive stages during its passage through the different processes of manufacture; and there is no plant in the district that does not do its own polishing, and most of them have one or more lathes in which they polish their own columns and rolls after they have been turned.
"Though its development extends back over a period of less than twenty years, the granite industry of St. Cloud has enjoyed a steady, healthy growth, owing to the excellence of the stone for all purposes for which granite can be used, and the straight-forward, honorable way in which the businesses
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of its manufacturers have been conducted. There have been no wildcat schemes, no stock-jobbing or watering, and also the business has in most every case started in a small way and developed from profits and not from large initial investments of capital, so that while all the ventures have not been snecessful, the proportion of failures to the total number who have started in the business is much smaller than can be shown in any of the eastern quarry districts.
"With two lines of railroad radiating in four directions, the shipping facilities are ideal for service to any points, and all the cutting plants are located on sidetracks of one or the other of the railroads-the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific. The quarries are not at present so fortunately situated, lying from two to six miles out from the town, and there are yet several of them that have no trackage facilities, though this will come in a very short time.
"Unlike the formations in the eastern states, the deposits in the St. Cloud district occur in practically level country, and consist of outcroppings of the stone above the surface, and extending down no one knows how far, so that all the properties being worked consist of 'holes in the ground,' some of which have required the removal or stripping of perhaps only a few wheelbarrow loads of dirt to uncover the workable granite.
"The manufacturing is all carried on in modern, straight-line sheds, built tight and well roofed, and heated in winter, the prevailing practice being to have the surfacers at one end, partly or entirely in the open, then the cutting department, and at the other end the polishing wheels, all served by one or more traveling cranes, some hand driven and some electrically driven. In lean-to ells are housed the engine rooms and offices.
"Railroad rates are somewhat of a handicap to the industry, the eastern producers being able, for instance, to deliver granite to Chicago, 1,000 miles, for about the same rate as can the St. Cloud district, 500 miles; and when this discrimination shall have been overcome St. Cloud will have no difficulty in increasing its annual output to a value of two million dollars.
"The exhibits of the St. Cloud manufacturers at Milwaukee convention were a revelation to some of the eastern dealers who had never before seen the stone, and caused many expressions of admiration. Some of the firms had been a little doubtful of the success of the venture for them, but their sample jobs were all sold, and many of them over and over again, one job being sold eighteen times.
"The manufacturers are Scotch, Germans and Swedes, with a few Amer- icans to maintain an equilibrium, and all are hard working conscientions men who take pride in seeing that nothing goes out of the district that will not reflect credit on the industry as a whole."
From the Minneapolis Tribune: "The Glory of St. Cloud. The granite quarries of St. Cloud produced last year stone valued at more than one million dollars. This was an increase of about $200,000 over the previous year. The fact that the million mark had been reached was duly celebrated at the annual banquet of the St. Cloud Granite Manufacturers' Association, held a few days ago. And well they might rejoice, for any industry that produces so useful
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