USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Dayton > History of the city of Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio, Volume I > Part 69
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The company has paid much attention to the idea of landscape gardening, and its plant has been beautified quite extensively in this respect. The buildings were painted, and then the fences were removed and grass seed sown. Flowers and shrubbery were planted.
At first there was not much of art displayed but finally Mr. J. C. Olmstead, a prominent landscape architect of Brookline, Massachusetts, whose firm laid out the World's Fair grounds at Chicago, Central Park, New York, and many other prominent parks and private estates of the country, was secured to come to the plant and give suggestions for its improvement.
The three simple principles of landscape gardening that were evolved are: (1) plant in masses ; (2) avoid straight lines, and (3) leave open centers. These are nature's simplest principles.
At the time the company began such improvement the district in which its buildings are located, was known as "Slidertown," an undesirable part of the city. In connection with the studying of landscape gardening for its own benefit, the company also by the use of stereopticon and crude charts taught the neighborhood people and encouraged them in their home adornment, showing the right and wrong ways of planting.
As a result of this educational work, that part of the city is now known as "South Park," containing beautiful homes, and being a very desirable residential section.
President Patterson did not limit his efforts to his own plant and its neighbor- hood, but did much at his own personal expense to show the benefit of such im- provement throughout the city. For instance, landscape improvements were made on property adjoining the railway tracks entering the city. This gives the passing stranger a better impression of the city.
The spirit was caught to some extent in all parts of Dayton, until landscape improvements are specially to be noted on all sides.
As a solution of the bad boy problem the company sets aside a tract of ground to be used as a vacation garden school for the boys of the neighborhood, pre- viously mentioned. Each boy is given a garden ten by one hundred feet and they raise almost everything imaginable in the line of vegetables. They dispose of these in any way they see fit. Last year one boy sold ninety-four dollars worth of vegetables, which he raised in one of the gardens. The company furnishes the garden seeds, gardening tools and an expert gardener to instruct the boys. The boys are awarded prizes for best results; after two years of efficient service they
THE BOY GARDENERS
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VIEW OF ONE OF THE WOMEN'S DEPARTMENTS NATIONAL CASH REGISTER COMPANY
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are awarded diplomas. These diplomas secure the boys employment here at the factory just as soon as they are old enough to work.
The National Cash Register Company has given its employes healthful sur- roundings, personal comfort, recreation, education, training, and fair treatment. In return it receives their thought and cooperation, resulting in improved product and increased output.
Whoever may make the cash registers of the future, they will have a perma- nent and recognized place "wherever cash is handled." The open cash-drawer is condemned already. "Would you stand in the center of your store while the clerks came and put in and took out money change from your side pockets?" asks the register salesman of the proprietor. "No, I would not." "But," is the true reply, "you are doing that already with the open cash-drawer," and to this there is no answer. Human nature is liable to give way to temptation when one is ex- pected to take, hold, and pay over money belonging to another, without any check or adequate inspection. Large employing companies found this out long ago; and the retailers' per cent of loss is not different. Companies, which bond the employes' integrity, tell us that the conditions to which temptation yields are just the same in Michigan, Texas and New York City.
Dayton people know that the Cash, as they call it for short, has not escaped much criticism and some ridicule from a variety of persons. Anyone can join this skeptical crowd who wants to; but he must find himself in company with all who believe that there is no new thing under the sun; that we are not our brother's keeper; that an employer owes his workman nothing more than wages, and that the way to get the most is to give the least in money or service.
Those who are friendly to the Cash, within its employment and without, know that its requirements are exacting, its opportunities great, its results as a whole substantial, and its future full of promise.
THE PLATT IRON WORKS COMPANY.
THE PLATT IRON WORKS COMPANY has for more than forty years been an important factor in the manufacturing world. Its several lines have gained for themselves an enviable record and are known the wide world over. This has come about through a steady growth during these years.
On November 19, 1866, Edwin R. Stilwell and G. Nelson Bierce entered into a co-partnership for the purpose of carrying on the manufacture and sale of the Stilwell patent heater, made under the firm name of Stilwell and Bierce. The capital was five thousand five hundred dollars.
On January 1, 1870, Thomas McGregor was taken in as a co-partner, and the name was changed to Stilwell-Bierce and Co., with a capital of twelve thousand dollars. Ten months later Stilwell & Bierce Manufacturing Company was incor- porated under the laws of Ohio, with a capital stock of two hundred thousand dollars. E. R. Stilwell, G. N. Bierce, Thos. McGregor, J. O. Joyce and G. H. Kneisley were the incorporators. Turbine water wheels were added to the line and the new company began to be recognized throughout the country.
In September, 1878, R. N. King became associated with the company and later became one of its principal officials.
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While this company was gaining for itself a name in its several lines, another organization was coming into notice. In August, 1874, Preserved Smith pur- chased from The Barney and Smith Manufacturing Company the American pat- ents of the Dayton cam pump and the Atlas pump, and with J. H Vaile began their manufacture. In January, 1878, W. W. Smith and J. H. Vaile formed a partnership known as Smith-Vaile Company, purchasing from Preserved Smith the pumping machinery business.
In 1886 The Smith and Vaile Company was incorporated by W. W. Smith, J. H. Vaile, Preserved Smith, S. H. Carr and O. P. McCabe, and the manufacture of oil mill machinery was added.
In December, 1892, these two companies, The Stilwell-Bierce Manufacturing Company and The Smith-Vaile Company were consolidated under the name of The Stilwell-Bierce and Smith-Vaile Company, with R. N. King, president; W. W. Smith, vice-president and treasurer; G. N. Bierce, secretary. The new capital stock was one million dollars. In 1896 this stock was increased to one million one hundred thousand dollars. The company was now in a position to do great things and proceeded to carry its products into all parts of the world. Branch offices were established in the principle cities of the United States, and the export trade was handled through the London office.
After the death of Mr. Smith in 1896, Mr. Carr became vice-president and Mr. McCabe was elected assistant secretary. In 1901 Mr. King retired and Mr. Vaile became president of the company ; E. F. Platt, treasurer ; O. P. McCabe, secretary ; and E. M. Thacker, assistant secretary and treasurer. In 1903 Mr. Vaile retired and H. E. Talbott was elected president ; E. F. Platt, vice-president and treasurer ; O. P. McCabe, secretary ; and George B. Smith, assistant secretary and treasurer.
In 1904 the company was reorganized under the name of The Platt Iron Works Company. The present organization is as follows : President, J. B. Reich- mann ; Vice-President and Treasurer, E. F. Platt; Secretary, John R. Burrows.
Smith-Vaile oil mill machinery is well and favorably known, and in daily operation in China, Austria, England, South and Central America, and in the majority of oil mills in the southern portion of our own country.
The largest single water wheel in the world was built by The Platt Iron Works Company, and is in constant service at the Snoqualmie Falls plant of the Seattle-Tacoma Power Company, some thirty-five miles out of Seattle. This wheel, under two hundred and eighty-six feet head, develops something like eleven thousand horsepower on a shaft directly connected to a generator.
Some four or five years ago the bureau of ordnance of the navy department at Washington issued to all of the various air compressor builders in the country, specifications which the bureau deemed to be, in their opinion, ideal, but requested the various manufacturers to submit blue prints and proposals on machines, em- bodying the features required by the bureau, with the idea of awarding to the manufacturer or manufacturers submitting the best proposal, a contract for sup- plying a number of these compressors.
These compressors were to be installed on battleships, and to be used for sup- plying the motive power to torpedoes after the latter had been launched, the air pressure required being two thousand five hundred pounds to the square inch.
PLATT IRON WORKS
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It was the bureau's restrictions as to dimensions of height, breadth and depth, as well as to weight in connection with great accessibility, and the up to then un- heard-of-pressure of two thousand five hundred pounds to the square inch, which called for original ideas in engineering and construction which resulted in the entire contract being awarded to The Platt Iron Works Company, and since that time all of the air compressors which have been installed in the battleships, cruisers, torpedo boats and torpedo boat destroyers of the American navy have been manufactured in Dayton.
While the four lines above spoken of comprise those in which this company are and have been pre-eminent, The Platt Iron Works Company also manufac- ture a complete line of pumping machinery from the small house tank pump to the twenty million gallon vertical triple expansion crank and flywheel Corliss pumping engine of the highest known economical duty; also a full line of com- mercial air compressors, steam and power driven, jet, surface and barometric tube condensers, a system of sanitary rendering tanks to conform with the speci- fications of the United States and federal requirements; filter process for the clarifying of all liquids ; also a complete line of power transmission machinery, such as pulleys, sheaves and so forth.
THE C. W. RAYMOND COMPANY.
During the early days of Ohio and at the time of the movement of settlers into the just then open territory known as Montgomery county, there came from Cincinnati a pioneer, Mr. G. M. Raymond, who in connection with his brother opened a blacksmith shop on the site of the old S. N. Brown Wheel Works building. He catered to such trade as building and ironing canal boats and stage coaches, these being the only means of travel in those days, and Dayton being situated as a regular station between northern points and Cincinnati, Mr. Ray- mond was able to accumulate a very large trade in this line, from which he derived a comfortable living. In later years Mr. Raymond opened his shop on Wayne avenue, near Third. It was here, in working for the various brick-yards adja- cent to the city, that the foundation for the present, The C. W. Raymond Com- pany, was laid.
At the completion of his high school course, Mr. C. W. Raymond, who was then quite a young man, associated himself in business with his father and, being of an inventive disposition, early grasped the opportunity of improvements offered in the manufacture of brick, brick being entirely made by hand at that time. His inventions followed closely one upon another, first the system of tem- pering or mixing clay by the use of a tempering wheel, made entirely of iron, which not only tempered clay more rapidly, but more thoroughly than the then existing methods, then a repress for making front pressed brick by hand power. With this he reaped a signal success. Following this he invented an automatic power repress, by which the bricks were pressed automatically and the capacity of the hand press more than trebled, also giving the brick greater density and smoother surfaces. This machine was adaptable to the molding of ornamental brick, enab- ling the architect or builder to obtain beautiful and artistic results in building construction. Ornamental brick at that time were made by hand in a plaster or
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wooden mold at great expense, but by the use of these represses the cost of such brick was reduced to a minimum.
These inventions revolutionized the clay industry of the United States and were as much of an improvement in their day as the startling improvements made in other lines at the present time. This caused an almost abnormal growth of the business and in a year or so following these inventions Mr. Raymond was com- pelled to build larger and more commodious quarters to accommodate his grow- ing business. These buildings were erected on the corner of First and Taylor streets, and the start was made looking to the completion of the entire line of clay working machinery.
In 1907 Mr. Raymond, finding that the business had grown to such an extent that it would be a physical impossibility to handle it alone, incorporated his com- pany under the title of The C. W. Raymond Company, and the factory was extended along First street until it occupied the entire block. So rapidly did business increase at this point that the buildings were soon found inadequate for the business. Various additions were made from time to time.
Other machines were invented, notable among which was an automatic cut- ting table, which was largely the product of the brains of Mr. Raymond's oldest son, Ellis P. Raymond. This machine had a phenomenal sale and rapidly added to the assets of the Raymond Company.
The era of prosperity has been continuous with the Raymond Company. Even during the panics of 1893 and 1908 no perceptible loss of business was shown. During their short existence they have not only depended upon their own inven- tions to increase their business, but have secured by purchase the output of sev- eral other manufacturers, whose machinery was not only a valuable addition to the Raymond Company, but the effect of removing a threatening competitor from the field was invaluable.
In 1907 the entire plant of the Wooley Foundry Machine Company, of An- derson, Indiana, was purchased and moved to Dayton. They were manufacturing a line much needed by the Raymond Company.
In February, 1909, the company secured the patents of P. L. Youngren, cov- ering a continuous gas-fired kiln, which reduces the cost of burning brick to the extent of over sixty per cent., a revolution in burning.
Shortly after this they purchased the patents and patterns from The United States Roofing Tile Company, of Parkersburg, West Virginia, covering roofing tile machinery and at this writing, 1909, they have just secured by purchase the entire patents and patterns from the Horton Manufacturing Company, of Paines- ville, Ohio, manufacturers of soft mud machines, thus adding another line of machinery to that already manufactured, making the C. W. Raymond Company the strongest power in the world in clay working machinery.
They are now building large factories in Dayton, covering approximately five acres of ground, to take care of their increasing business and which will be equipped throughout with every known appliance for rapidly and economically handling the heavy machinery of their make. Their growth has been so rapid that 1909 finds them a world power in their line, shipping their products to all parts of the habitable globe. In the United States the demand for their machin-
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ery has been measured not only by car loads, but on many occasions full train loads have been comprised in one shipment.
During their career the Raymond Company have increased the capacity of brick machinery from ten thousand a day to two hundred and twenty-five thous- and a day and now mostly automatic. One would suppose that when brick ma- chinery was built with a capacity of two hundred and twenty-five thousand brick as a daily output, the end of further effort to increase was at hand.
The officers of the company are as follows: President, C. W. Raymond; Vice-President, C. W. Raymond, Jr .; Secretary and Treasurer, J. L. Schroll; General Manager, G. M. Raymond.
The C. W. Raymond Company build and equip throughout entire plants with clay working machinery, either for the stiff mud, dry press or soft mud process, use the most thorough systems of drying and burning. They have a corps of chemists, competent engineers and erectors. They build the latest improved machinery known, and fully guarantee successful working results in all cases.
THE DAYTON MANUFACTURING COMPANY.
THE DAYTON MANUFACTURING COMPANY was incorporated in January. 1883, with E. J. Barney, J. D. Platt, F. E. Smith, A. Bissell, A. C. Barney, Agnes E. Platt. C. U. Raymond and J. Kirby, Jr., as stockholders, who elected as directors of the company, E. J. Barney, J. D. Platt, F. E. Smith, A. C. Barney, J. Kirby, Jr., and C. U. Raymond; the officers elected being: President, E. J Barney ; Vice- President, J. D. Platt : Treasurer, F. E. Smith ; General Manager, J. Kirby, Jr., and Secretary, C. U. Raymond, who continued in their respective offices until July, 1909, when Mr. Raymond retired from the secretaryship and was succeeded by H. D. Hendrick, for many years Mr. Raymond's assistant.
At this meeting, July, 1909, Nelson Emmons, Jr., was chosen assistant general manager, having for many years been connected with the company as assistant to the general manager, and Theodore H. Barlow was appointed superintendent to succeed Charles Colton, who retired after filling the position for more than twenty years.
The business of the company is the manufacture of railway car hardware, in- cluding lamps, electroliers, door locks and hinges, water closets, nickeline wash- stands and other toilet room fixtures ; basket racks and all the multifarious fitting of brass, bronze, nickeline and iron that are used in passenger, dining, sleeping and private cars of every kind for steam and street railroads.
The business of the company extends all over the United States, and into Can- ada, Australia, South America and other foreign countries. The company enjoys an enviable reputation for quality of product and fair treatment of its customers and is ranked among Dayton's most substantial and enterprising manufacturing industries.
It is noted for its alertness in keeping abreast of the times in the introduction of new designs and inventions and has added its full portion to the development of railroad car equipment along its particular line of manufacture, especially in meeting the requirements of all steel car construction.
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The works of the company are located at the corner of Third and Garfield streets, where, in June 1883, it began operations and turned out its first product, having added new buildings and additions from time to time to meet increased demands upon its capacity.
A point worthy of special note in connection with the history and success of the company is the stability and character of its organization. Its office force and heads of departments are composed of men who, in nearly all cases have grown up in the service of the company and are experts in their respective employments. The producing force of the company is mostly composed of men who learned their trades under the tutorage of its superintendent and foremen and have re- mained many years in the service of the company, a large number of them having been in its employ ever since the company began operations in 1883.
For nearly a quarter of a century Joseph and Peter Leidenger have repre- sented the company as traveling salesmen and are among the best known and most popular salesmen in their line.
In addition to the manufacture of car hardware an important branch of the company's business is in locomotive and street car electric and oil headlights in which it has a large trade. While the company makes no special effort to secure business in other lines, yet having the facilities and skilled mechanics adapted to a general line of artistic metal work it has produced many specimens of fine work- manship outside of its established lines, as above enumerated, such as ornamental grilles, statuettes, life size statues and other articles in wrought and cast brass, bronze and other metals.
THE BEAVER SOAP COMPANY.
This business was started in December, 1878, by Frederick P. Beaver, in a building on Commercial street. A year later he moved to the north side of Second street, one door east of Jefferson. In 1880 the business was again moved to the building on the southwest corner of First street and the canal, and in 1882 to the Bennett Building on Sears street, now occupied by the city as the Police Patrol house.
In the latter part of 1883 Robert Marsh became a partner in the firm under the name of Beaver and Marsh. Mr. Marsh withdrew in the summer of 1885, and Willard D. Chamberlin became interested in the business, the name being changed to Beaver and Company.
The growth of the business was steady and permanent, and in 1889, finding the rented quarters on Sears street too small, the abandoned plant of the Dayton Syrup Refining Company in Edgemont was purchased and became the permanent home of the company.
In 1893, Mr. Chamberlin's health becoming impaired by overwork, it was de- cided to form a stock company, and this was done, under the name of The Beaver Soap Company, Mr. Beaver becoming the active head. Associated with him were Charles F. Snyder and Edward B. Solomon, and later, Angus K. Rankin. There was practically no change in the management until 1906, when, Mr. Beaver desir- ing to retire, Mr. Chamberlin again became active in the affairs of the company.
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The officers are: President, Willard D. Chamberlin; Vice-President, Charles F. Snyder ; Secretary, Angus K. Rankin ; Treasurer, J. Russell Hall.
From the first, the products of the company have been of the best, and no firm in Dayton has a higher standing as to its business integrity and fair dealing.
THE NEW ERA GAS ENGINE COMPANY.
THE NEW ERA IRON WORKS was organized for the purpose of manufacturing gas and gasoline engines. The organization took place on March 1, 1894, the cap- ital stock being twenty-five thousand dollars.
The machinery and equipment were purchased by The New Era Iron Works from Johnston and Son, who were located on the corner of Wayne avenue and the railroad crossing.
The business of The New Era Iron Works was conducted in the same build- ing for a number of years. The business of building gas and gasoline engines had gradually increased from year to year until in the year 1900 the volume of business grew so rapidly that the quarters occupied at that time were inadequate, and it was deemed advisable to look for a new location where more room could be had for the manufacture of their engines. It was finally decided to purchase the manufacturing plant located at the corner of Second street and Dale avenue, (west side) which plant afforded sufficient room to supply the growing demand for New Era gas and gasoline engines.
With the increased facilities after moving into the new plant, the volume of business was greatly increased, and the New Era gas and gasoline engine became known all over the United States as being one of the best built and most satisfactory running engines on the market.
On March 1, 1904, the capital stock of the company was increased to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, fully paid up, and the name of the company was changed to The New Era Gas Engine Company. The business continued to grow and there are now thousands of New Era gas and gasoline engines in op- eration in every state of the Union.
At about this time, there became a demand for the gas producer in connection with the gas engine and this company has installed a number of plants with the gas producer in connection with their New Era gas engine in units of from twenty- five to one hundred horse power. They give splendid satisfaction and have proved to be the most economical power of the age. The company is manufac- turing a large line of engines, and they have pushed their New Era type of engine, which is built in units from eight to one hundred horse power.
Up to August 1, 1908, The New Era Gas Engine Company were exclusively builders of New Era gas and gasoline engines and gas producers, but at that time a new department was added to their business; that of manufacturing the New Era auto-cycle, which is in fact a two wheel automobile, having a free motor and two speeds ; the high and low speed and brake being operated by the feet on the foot-board, a comfortable form seat and a Go-inch wheel base, making the New Era auto-cycle one of the most comfortable and successful riding auto-cycles ever built.
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