USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cleveland and its environs; the heart of new Connecticut > Part 68
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Mr. Kraus was admitted to practice in the United States District Courts on March 23, 1917. He is a lawyer of unusual accomplish- ment, speaks several languages fluently, and among other interests enjoys a fine private library. He is a director of the Du-More Manufacturing Company of Cleveland, and is secretary and general manager and counsel of the People's Mortgage Company. In politics he is an active republican, and has been on the party ticket for the State Legislature and the State Senate. He now gives much of his time to the benefit of the East End Cham- ber of Commerce of Cleveland, of which he is a director. While in college and high school he was noted as an all-round athlete, and his principal sport now is bowling. He is a member of the Cleveland Independent Aid Society and the Cleveland Bar Associ- ation.
His home is at 10107 Parmelee Avenue. September 27, 1910, in Cleveland he married Miss Ida E. Kramer. Her mother is Mrs. Bertha Kramer of Cleveland. Mrs. Kraus was born in this city, and is an accomplished vocal- ist, and finished her education in Eliza War- ren's School of Expression. She gives con- siderable time to the benefit of the Orphans Aid Society of Cleveland. Mr. and Mrs. Kraus have two children, both born iu Cleveland, Bertram S. and Lorna R.
THE CLEVELAND TELEPHONE COMPANY. In 1876 in Boston Alexander Graham Bell, a Scotchman, and at the time a teacher of elo- cution in that city, after many months of patient experimentation with a wire, a mag- net and a clock spring reed, produced a crude toy that conveyed the words of human speech
from one room to another. This was the birth of the telephone. A few weeks later the device was placed on exhibition at the Philadelphia Centennial, but it was not until near the close of the Centennial that it at- tracted any notice. The first "Exchange" was set up in Boston in May, 1877, and as late as 1879 the telephone directory of New York City was a small card showing only 250 names.
The average person seldom stops to con- sider just how much the telephone means as an implement of modern life. The business man reaches for his telephone and calls a party a thousand miles away with as little concern as calling the office boy from the next room. The housewife orders the daily provisions and makes her social engagements by telephone in a matter of fact way as though this helpful little instrument had al- ways been a part of the household. The modern newspaper man spends much of his time with the telephone at his ear. The vet- erans of the game recall a time not far dis- tant when a good pair of legs was an abso- lute necessity to the successful news gath- erer. Abraham Lincoln and most of his con- temporaries and men who lived for a dozen years after his death knew nothing of the telephone.
It was thirty-eight years ago that the tele- phone made its official bow to the Cleveland public, being a side issue in connection with the Western Union Telephone Company. E. P. Wright, who was then superintendent of the Western Union, opened the first telephone office in a room in the Board of Trade Build- ing on Water Street, which is now West Ninth Street. In his spare time he succeeded in in- teresting seventy-six Cleveland business men in the "new speaking telegraph," as it was then generally designated. Wires were strung. mostly from roof to roof, and a new era of communication was inaugurated in Cleve- land. The public had but to look up in the air at the number of wires to determine whether the business was growing; for tele- phone cables either aerial or underground, were unknown equipment.
From the Water Street location the tele- phone office was moved to the attic floor of a building on Superior Street where all the tele- phone wires entered the building through a tower on the roof. The business continued to grow, poles appeared on all the leading thor- onghfares, and in 1888 another move was necessary. The company took up its abode in
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a building at the northwest corner of Seneca and Michigan streets, now West Third and Prospect respectively. This location is diag- onally across from the present main office building, into which the company moved in January. 1898.
This last move gave the public what is termed a central energy system, and it was no longer necessary to turn a crank on the side of the telephone in order to signal the operator. Also the mussy batteries at the subscribers' telephones were replaced by large storage cells at the central office. The latest and most approved type of switchboard was installed but the telephone art is a pro- gressive one and this board, considered a won- der in its day, has since been replaced by a later type switchboard that completely over- shadows its predecessor in mechanical effi- ciency.
The history of the Cleveland Telephone Company is a story of uninterrupted progress from the beginning. Being an integral part of the industrial, commercial and social life of the community, it is probably a better barometer of the steady advancement of the city than any other medium. As a means of communication, the telephone has been abso- lutely essential to Cleveland's welfare. The modern office building would be as impossible without the telephone as without elevators.
From the meager beginning of seventy-six telephones in 1879, the business of the Cleve- land Bell Telephone Company has increased to practically 100,000 telephones, caring for Cleveland and all Cuyahoga County. From the small room on Water Street, the expansion has continued until today the company owns eleven large modern fireproof operating build- ings, two construction, supply and garage headquarters, and has rented quarters in the Engineers Building, the Arcade Building, the East Forty-sixth Street Market Building. and the Ainsfield Building.
It has 3,500 employes, 1,800 of whom are telephone operators, and it pays $1,500.000 a year in salaries and wages to Cleveland peo- ple. Not so many years ago 1,000 calls per day was considered a heavy traffic load. Now this busy organization cares for as high as 725,000 calls in one day. During the two- year period, 1915-17, the growth has been the most phenomenal in the history of the com- pany. To care for a net gain of 23,900 tele- phones would have been a big problem in it- self, but in addition to this the abnormal busi- ness conditions brought about an increase of
60 per cent in the traffic load. To meet these conditions, one entirely new exchange build- ing was constructed, 100 per cent additions were made to two of the largest exchange buildings, and 50 per cent additions were made to four other large exchange buildings. In the exchange buildings 172 additional switchboard sections were put into servicc.
With the coming of the lead sheathed cable, the Cleveland Telephone Company started an active campaign to replace the heavy wire pole leads with either aerial or underground cable, and today there are 225,000 miles of underground wire and 60,000 miles of aerial wire, three-fourths of the latter being in aerial cable.
An important period in the earlier days of the Cleveland company was the introduction of long distance service. This gave the local business a tremendous impetus and one new central office followed another in quick suc- cession. The first long distance company was known as the Midland Company and long dis- tance service was known as "Extra Ter- ritorial."
The Cleveland Telephone Company is now an associated company of the American Tele- phone and Telegraph Company, giving its sub- scribers access to 10,000,000 telephones dis- tributed over the entire country and extend- ing into Canada and Mexico. Four thousand long distance messages are handled each day in Cleveland by a force of more than 350 op- erators.
Throughout the life of the Cleveland Tele- phone Company it has not only been a leader in making constructive improvements in its own business, but its officials have invariably been found in the forefront of important in- dustrial and civic movements. Whether it be a Federated Charities campaign, a Red Cross campaign, or a Liberty Bond campaign, the officials and organization of the Cleveland Telephone Company have been found taking an active part for the mutual good of the community. It shows the spirit of the com- pany and of its executives and employes, and signalizes the important position the company occupies in the daily activities of the city.
It is probably true that no institution has done more to realize the letter and spirit of true democracy in the relations between the corporation and its employes. Each exchange of the Cleveland Telephone Company has a rest room, lunch room and library. A feature of the company's welfare work is the employ- ment of a social secretary and a medical su-
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pervisor. The company maintains an oper- ators' school. In order to become a member of this school applicants must pass a pre- liminary application as to mental, moral and physical qualifications. The course includes a series of lectures and actual work at practic- ing switchboards.
ALLARD SMITH, general manager of the Cleveland Telephone Company, is a graduate electrical engineer and has spent nearly twenty years in practical telephone work, and is today one of the leading executive telephone men of the country.
He was born at Eau Claire, Wisconsin, June 23, 1876, a son of William H. and Cath- erine (Fox) Smith, now retired at Eau Claire, where they have been residents for over sixty years. Mr. Smith's great-grandfather Smith was a captain in the Revolutionary army, and the family removed to Wisconsin from the northern part of Maine.
Allard Smith, fourth of five children and the only one of the family a resident of Ohio, was educated in the public schools of Eau Claire, graduating from high school in 1894 and then entering the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He received his degree as elec- trical engineer in 1898, and went direct from university to Chicago, where he was assigned to a place as a night employe in the switch- board department of the Chicago Telephone Company. He was one of those fortunate young men who find a congenial sphere of work immediately on leaving college. He was promoted from time to time, and finally was superintendent of construction of the Chicago Telephone Company. From 1911 to the end of 1913 he was employed as construction en- gineer of the Bell Telephone System, covering the five states of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michi- gan and Wisconsin. In March, 1914, Mr. Smith came to Cleveland as general manager of the local Bell Company, and has since been also a director of the company.
Mr. Smith had some military training in his younger years, being a member of the Wisconsin National Guard from 1896 to 1899. At the time of the Spanish-American war he was accepted as an ensign in the navy, but the war was over and the nearest he got to the front was Old Point Comfort.
He is well known as a citizen of Cleveland and is a director of the Morris Plan Bank of Cleveland, director and vice president of the City Club, and is active in the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, Union Club, Univer-
sity Club, Advertising Club and Shaker Heights Country Club. Mr. Smith is inde- pendent in politics and has no active partisan affiliations.
June 30, 1901, at Viroqua, Wisconsin, he married Miss Margaret Elizabeth Butt, dangh- ter of Colonel C. M. Butt, who is now living retired at Viroqua. Mrs. Smith was born in that Wisconsin town, graduated from the Viroqua High School, and was a member of the class of 1899 in the University of Wiscon- sin. Mr. and Mrs. Smith reside on Ashbury Avenue.
JOHN J. SEXTON, now handling a good gen- eral practice as a lawyer with offices in the Engineers' Building, has been identified with business and politics in Cleveland nearly all his life.
Mr. Sexton was born at Cleveland June 24, 1879, a son of Patrick and Mary Sexton. His parents are still living and both were natives of County Clare, Ireland, where they grew up. In 1875, at the age of twenty-one, they both came to America and were married at Cleveland. Patrick Sexton at first worked for Maher in the old rolling mill at wages of 90 cents a day. He walked from Dodge Street to Glenville, the other side of Gordon Park. twice a day. Later he was with the Otis Steel Company until injured and for eighteen months was confined to his house. Since then he has been in the saloon business, first at 211% King Avenue, later at 14 King Avenue, and then bought a place of his own at 1011 Lakeside Avenue, the present number of which is 3315 Lakeside Avenue. That was his headquarters from 1889 to 1907. He turned over this business to his son, John, who soon afterwards sold it. The father is now in the saloon business at 5247 Superior Avenne and that has been his location since December 8, 1909. He has always owned his own place of business, has been independent of the brew- ing companies and has conducted a model saloon, in all these years never having violated any of the ordinances governing the liquor traffic. He is now one of the oldest members in Cleveland of the Ancient Order of Hibern- ians, also belongs to the Catholic Mutual Bene- fit Association, and is a member of the Im- maculate Conception Catholic Church. He and his wife have three sons and three daugh- ters, all living. Daniel E. of Cleveland; John J .; Marie, Mrs. John F. Straub, wife of the foreman of The Otis Steel Company: Nellie and Elizabeth, both at home; and Frank, a
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mail carrier out of the Collingwood Station. All the children were born in Cleveland.
John J. Sexton was educated in the Im- maculate Conception Parochial School, St. Ignatius College, and in 1915 took his law degree from Baldwin-Wallace University.
As soon as he was old enough he began contributing to his own support and worked thereafter every school vacation. At the age of fourteen during vacations he worked for The Otis Steel Company, and at the age of seventeen found a regular position on that payroll and was with the company twelve years, beginning as weighmaster and later as foreman of the open hearth department. In March, 1907, after an operation for appendi- citis Mr. Sexton left the steel company. Abont that time his parents went back to Ireland for a visit to the old sod after an absence of many years. They were away three months and John Sexton took charge of his father's business. In 1908 his father built a place at the corner of Fifty-third and Superior, where he is today, and John Sexton then took a place of his own at 6021 St. Clair Avenue. He sold that in March, 1909.
He then looked after his father's business interests and also became salesman and col- lector for Tom Foot, the printer. In 1910 he was taken ill and was sick for seven months. Resuming work he was employed a year and a half by the board of review at the court- house, and spent a few months with the board of elections, also in the auditor's office, and until August, 1913, was clerk in the criminal court under County Clerk Charles Horner. While around the courthouse he took up the study of law in Cleveland Law School, finish- ing his course in the Baldwin-Wallace Col- lege as above noted. He now has offices in the Engineers Building and enjoys a good general practice as a lawyer. He was ad- mitted to practice in the United States Court February 7, 1917.
His father has been one of the most ardent democrats in Cleveland, and John Sexton was also affiliated with that party but is now a republican. In local affairs he is strictly inde- dependent, voting for the best man. He was a candidate for nomination for councilman from the Tenth Ward against Peter J. Henry, now clerk of the Municipal Court. Henry was endorsed by the late Tom Johnson, and was elected by 157 votes over Mr. Sexton. Mr. Sexton was also an influential factor in the campaign of Herman Baehr in his candidacy for mayor against Tom Johnson in 1909. For
the past eight years Mr. Sexton has been a republican. He is a close friend of former Secretary of State C. Q. Hildebrand and did much to insure his election to that state office.
Mr. Sexton is a member of the Catholic Order of Foresters, Woodmen of the World, Loyal Order of Moose, Germania Turnverein of the Twenty-third Ward Republican Club, and belongs to the Immaculate Conception Parish. He helped campaign the state in the interests of the "wets" during the last two elections.
June 5, 1917, in Immaculate Conception Church he married Miss Catherine Wacho. Mr. Sexton was born at the corner of Forty- fifth and St. Clair when that district of the city was farm lands. He was baptized in the Immaculate Conception Church and received his first communion there. Mrs. Sexton was born and educated in Cleveland, having at- tended St. Martin's parochial schools.
HENRY S. FRENCH. For over sixty years the name French has figured prominently in the commercial and industrial affairs of Cleve- land. And this name has other interesting associations than those strictly confined to business.
The founder of the family here was the late Clinton D. French. He was born at Barre, Vermont, in September, 1827, of rugged New England stock. He was directly descended from that William French of Westminster, Vermont, whose blood with Daniel Hough- ton's was the first shed in the Revolution on March 13, 1775, and to whose memory the state erected a monument in 1875.
Educated in public schools, Clinton .D. French came to Cleveland in 1854 and soon established a retail dry goods business under the name of French & Company. Subse- quently the business was conducted by French & Davis, their store being located at 91 Supe- rior Avenue Northeast. Still later the firm was French & Keith, and the business was then moved to the Marble Block on Superior between Bank and Seneca streets. Clinton D. French sold out in 1862, was in the real estate business for a time, and in 1863 with his brother Gilbert L. established French's Golden Lion, a retail dry goods store at Buffalo, New York. From this Clinton French withdrew in 1876, and after that his time was taken up with the management of his private property and other interests.
One of his distinctive characteristics was a love for the old and the rare, and he gave
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much of the time of his later years and con- siderable of his means to the collection of an- tiques, especially books, documents and his- torical souvenirs. Perhaps the most famous article of his collection was the coach which Lafayette brought over from France and used in his tour of America in 1825. This coach was made in Paris, and after coming into the possession of Mr. French was carefully pre- served and aside from the fading of its bright colors was kept in almost the same condition as when the famons Frenchman rode upon it. It is elaborately wrought and highly finished, of the style of the Napoleonic period and of the First Empire. Too heavy for ordinary service with a single pair of horses, four pow- erful steeds having drawn it over the heavy roads of early America, it has escaped the common use and consequently experienced lit- tle wear or tear. Formerly it appeared upon the streets only on rare occasions of national rejoicing or public sorrow.
Clinton D. French was a member of the old Stone Church in Cleveland, and a democrat in politics. He died September 1, 1901, at the age of seventy-four. At Buffalo, New York, he married Henrietta Davis.
Their only child, Henry S. French, was born at Buffalo, New York, July 18, 1865. He attended the Rockwell public school in Cleve- land and at the age of fourteen began earning his own living as a clerk in Bailey & Crothers retail dry goods store at Cleveland. This firm by subsequent change and development be- came the great department store of L. A. Bailey. In 1882 Mr. French resigned his posi- tion there, and went into the service of J. G. W. Cowles in the real estate business. After 1893 he continued in this business alone until 1901. At that date he established the Ma- chinery Forging Company, of which he has since been president and treasurer. Mr. French was one of the organizers and the financial backer of the Tabor Ice Cream Com- pany at its organization a few years ago, and this concern in a short time took first rank in its line in the city, so rapid was its growth.
Mr. French is a member of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce. Cleveland Athletic Club, Cleveland Rotary Club, Cleveland Auto- mobile Club, Willowick Country Club, and in polities is a republican. On January 25, 1888, at Cleveland he married Miss Minerva Antoi- nette Copeland. They are the parents of four children : Laura A., now Mrs. C. E. Hartwell of Cleveland ; Clinton R., connected with the forging business at Cincinnati; Noyes C., vice
president of the Machinery Forging Company ; and Georgiana B.
LOUIS ROBERT LANZA was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1915 and has since been making rapid strides toward professional achievement at Cleveland, and is now enjoying a splendid and growing practice with offices in the En- gineers Building.
Mr. Lanza was born in the Village of Alcarafusi, Province of Messina, on the plains of Southern Italy, September 26, 1886, the only child of Francis and Frances (Mileti) Lanza, his mother dying at his birth. His father, who is now living in Cleveland, was a man of considerable local prominence in the Village of Alcarafusi, where both he and his wife were born. He was mayor of the village for three terms of four years each, and on leaving that office was made postmaster, an office which in Italy is a life appointment. He resigned the position and came to America in 1902. For his second wife he married in 1888 Mary Mileti, a sister of his first wife, and they had three sons : Joseph A., a chemist for The Arco Company of Cleveland; Otto, a mining foreman in Colorado, and James, at- tending school in Cleveland. The mother of these sons died at Cleveland in 1908.
Louis Robert Lanza was sixteen years old when he came to America and prior to that time had attended the schools of his native town and finished his early education in Cleve- land. He took up the study of law, and after graduating from the Baldwin-Wallace Acad- emy in 1912 entered the law department of the Baldwin-Wallace University and grad- uated LL. B. in 1915. In the same year he was admitted to practice and his offices have always been in the Engineers Building: He has been admitted to practice in the United States District Court.
Mr. Lanza is a member of the Loyal Order of Moose, the Modern Woodmen of America, and is president of the Alcarese Society, an incorporated Italian society of Cleveland.
He and his family reside at 441 East One Hundred Twenty-third Street. On October 25, 1916, he married Miss Gisalda Meleti in Cleveland. She was born in Padua, Italy, daughter of Gaetano and Johanna (Frattini) Mcleti, who are now living in Cleveland. She was educated at Milan, Italy, and came to the United States with her parents at the age of fifteen. Mr. and Mrs. Lanza have one son, Robert Francis, born in Cleveland.
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GEORGE P. KOELLIKER. A number of pro- fessional men of Cleveland who have qualified for the practice of their special vocations have never engaged in these occupations as individ- uals, but have used their talent and learning in connection with institutions of a business or financial character, where their' acquired knowledge is found to be of inestimable value to the interests involved. In this class is found George P. Koelliker, secretary of The Citizens Savings and Trust Company, connected with various other interests, and a lawyer by pro- fession. He also has the distinction of being a native son of Cleveland, having been boru here January 1, 1881.
Herman Koelliker, the father of George P. Koelliker, was born in Switzerland, and came to the United States when four years of age. He grew to manhood here and received a good education, and on reaching man's estate chose the vocation of stationary engineer for his own, He followed that occupation for many years and is now living in comfortable retirement at Cleveland, having acquired a satisfying competency. Mrs. Koelliker, who also survives as one of the honored residents of Cleveland, of which city she is a native, bore the maiden name of Barbara Brickman, and is a member of an old American family of Ger- man origin.
George P. Koelliker received a graded and high school education at Cleveland, following which he took an academic course under pri- vate tutors and qualified for the bar under the Supreme Court ruling. He was graduated from the Cleveland Law School in 1905 and in the same year that he received his degree was admitted to the bar. While still a stu- dent, in 1899, Mr. Koelliker began working as a stenographer with The Savings and Trust Company of Cleveland, in order to assist in paying the cost of his tuition, and remained with this institution afterward when it had become consolidated with The Citizens Sav- ings and Trust Company. In January, 1914, he was made assistant secretary of this insti- tution, and in January, 1916, was advanced to the post of secretary, which he still retains. Mr. Koelliker does not confine himself to the work of this company, for he has various other important interests which make a demand upon his abilities. He is connected with sev- eral realty companies of Cleveland with valu- able property ; is secretary and was one of the organizers of The General Alloys Company, which manufactures cutting tools: and was one of the organizers and is secretary of The
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