Few factories in olden times

     Two hundred years ago there were but a few large factories anywhere. Nearly every article of dress, food, furniture, and implements, was made at home or in shops where only the master workmen, a few journeymen (mechanics) and apprentices (learners) worked. Nearly everything had to be done by hand with the aid of a few simple tools. The most intricate machinery then in existence was the windmill, the spinning wheel, the loom, and the steam engine, which, however, could only be used for pumping water. In 1769 James Watt improved the steam engine so that it would turn wheels. Soon after came the inventions by English mechanics of spinning machines and power looms. Cotton and woolen factories then arose in England and the United States. When agricultural labor saving machinery was invented, still more factories were built.

Saw mills, grist mills, and other mills

     At first the settlers on the Sac and Fox Purchases frequently sawed their own boards and ground their own meal or flour. But it was not long before saw mills and grist mills were in operation along the streams. These mills were the first factories in Iowa. Others were blacksmith and carriage shops, which in some instances grew into larger establishments. Still other early factories were breweries and woolen mills. But for more than a quarter of a century, no other industry than agriculture gave employment to a very large number of people. In 1860 there were only 6,307 persons employed in Iowa factories, but during the next ten years this number rose to 25,032.

Page 92

Rafting Wisconsin and Minnesota logs to Iowa saw mills

     This great increase in manufacturing was due to the growth of new industries such as railroad repair shops and the output of agricultural implements, but especially to the change of grist mills into flour mills, and the multiplication of saw mills and other wood industries in the larger towns on the Mississippi River. While the earlier mills had been driven by water power, these later factories mostly used steam power. The saw mills sawed logs cut in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The logs were tied into big rafts and floated down the Mississippi where the saw mills were strung along the river banks way down to St. Louis. Logs began to be rafted in the forties. In 1865, W. J. Young of Clinton began to use

Saw mill district in Clinton in the eighteen nineties

steamboats to guide the rafts down the river. Immense qualities of logs were floated down to the Iowa cities of Dubuque, Clinton, Davenport, Muscatine, Fort Madison, and Keokuk during the seventies and eighties. Most of the logs rafted to Iowa were white pine, a kind of wood which is easily worked and yet very durable when kept dry. In the seventies and eighties there was a good market for both rough and finished lumber in the towns and cities and on the farms where log cabins were giving way to frame buildings. A marked decline in the lumber business in Iowa set in during the nineties due to low prices on farm products and to the growth of saw mills closer to the northern pineries.

    In the eighties, the ravages of the chinch bugs gave flour milling in Iowa a severe setback. Several mills were closed. But the manu-....,

Page 93

....facture of flour and finished lumber products continued to be important Iowa industries.

Cheese and butter factories

     We have already noted the rapid rise of cheese and butter factories during the seventies and eighties. So many of them were built that their number at the close of the century exceeded that of any other industry in the State, excepting the printing and publishing business.

Packing houses

     The large number of cattle and hogs kept on Iowa farms offered special opportunities for packing plants. Even the pioneers had begun in a small way. They not only slaughtered cattle and hogs for their own use, but prepared some meat products also for the market. In the seventies there were packing houses in Iowa with a capacity of several thousand hogs a day. In the eighties the packing house industry in Sioux City had grown to the extent of making that city one of the five leading centers of the packing industry in the United States.

    In the present century the packing industry has operated large plants in Sioux City, Ottumwa, Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines and Mason City. Poultry packing plants are found in even more Iowa cities.

Breakfast foods

     The manufacture of breakfast foods is another of the leading Iowa industries. By far the largest center for this industry has long been Cedar Rapids. A dour Scotchman, George Douglas, later associate with John Stuart, brought to Cedar Rapids the Scotch methods of making oatmeal, which they advertised under the American name of Quaker Oats. The first oatmeal factory in Cedar Rapids was built in 1873. Two years later a seven story building was put up for the mill, and equipped with the most modern machinery. The capacity of the mill was then about 600 barrels per day. Other cereal foods were also processed, and the industry grew to be of national and international importance.

Pearl buttons

     A lesser Iowa industry, but of special interest, is the manufacture of pearl buttons. This industry owes its origin to a German immi-�.

Page 94

.... grant, J. F. Boepple, who came to Iowa in the early eighties. By trade he was button cutter. But since there was no work in that line here, he worked a while on a farm. Sitting one day at the river front of Muscatine, he noticed a government dredge boat in operation. Piles of mud were thrown up on shore, in which he noticed some mussel shells. Some of them he picked up and carried home. After a thorough study of them, he discovered to his great delight that these Mississippi River shells were an excellent material for making pearl buttons. This was a great discovery for hitherto only sea shells had been used to make such buttons. Soon he was working at his old trade, and in a few years there were button factories in several Mississippi River cities, the largest being in Muscatine. In time the Muscatine button factories employed 2,000 men and 800 women. But the wages of these employees were extremely low, and some of the first serious labor disputes in Iowa occurred in this industry.

Newer industries in Iowa

     Many other industries have come to Iowa. Of these we will mention farm machinery in Waterloo, washing machines in Newton, earth moving machinery in Cedar Rapids, fountain pens in Fort Madison, and aluminum in Davenport.

    Iowa continues to be one of the leading, sometimes the leading agricultural state in the Union. But one-fifth of the people in Iowa now depend on factories for making a living. The value of the annual output of Iowa factories had grown to be over three billion dollars.

Lead, zinc, and iron

     Though not one of the leading mining states, Iowa had many valuable mines. It has already been stated that the lead miens in Dubuque, Clayton and Allamakee counties drew some of the first settlers to this part of Iowa. They smelted the lead ores by a crude process by which only 50 per cent of the metal could be extracted. Improving the process by introducing the cupola furnace, they could extract 65 to 70 per cent, and finally by the use of the blast furnace, they were enabled to take out all the metal. The most productive period of lead mining in Iowa was probably from 1834 to 1849. Zinc ore began to be mined in 1860. In 1901 Dubuque and Allamakee counties produced 350 tons of zinc and 13,800 tons of lead. Allamakee also produced a few thousand tons of iron. None of these metals are now mined in Iowa.

Page 95

Coal, gypsum and other minerals

     Soft or bituminous coal began to be mined in the thirties of last century, but only for local use. In 1850 only 1,500 tones were produced. But from 1860 onward coal mining developed rapidly. The annual output in 1860 exceeded a million tons and four times that amount five years later. Coal at that time was mined in 25 Iowa counties, though chiefly in Monroe, Polk, and Appanoose counties.

South Park Coal Mine near Des Moines. About 1870

    In the present century a new method of digging coal has been introduced, known as strip mining. By this method the coal is laid bare by scooping the top layers of earth and rock by power driven machinery. Thus coal mining is made easier and safer, but it ruins the land because it leaves the excavated earth and rock in unsightly heaps-forming a kind of "Bad Lands." Voices have been raised for restoring the "Bad Lands" to some form of useful production.

    Other valuable minerals found in Iowa are limestone, sandstone, gypsum, clay and gravel for concrete. Limestone and sandstone....

Page 96

....have been quarried for building material since the earliest days of white settlement. The pioneers dug clay and made bricks. Some early houses were built of bricks, also some schoolhouses. This appears to have been the origin of the oft-used expression "the little red schoolhouse."

    Beginning in the seventies, there was a growing demand for drain tiles, which was met by the enlargement of the older brick yards and the establishment of new ones. Recent building booms in towns and cities have greatly stimulated the production of both common and ornamental bricks.

Fooling the people some of the time, but not all the time

     In 1850, about the time of the founding of Fort Dodge, a kind of stone was discovered there, which turned hard when exposed to the air. Little use, however, was made of it until after 1868, when certain impostors from the East played a trick upon the whole American people. These fellows bought a block of the mineral, which they had made into a huge statue, and buried it near Cardiff in the state of New York. In pretending to be digging a well the owner of the land brought the statue to light again. Instantly, there was a nation-wide sensation. Sightseers flocked to the state of New York to see the "Cardiff Giant," thought to be a petrified man from per-historic times -- times long before the Mound Builders. Learned men even wrote treatises on the find, spinning theories as to its origin. Others refused to be misled and pronounced the whole affair a bold trick.

    But perpetrated by whom? The answer came from a Fort Dodge editor to whom the "Giant" recalled the purchase of a big block of gypsum only a few months before. After some study he wrote and published an account of the whole affair and exposed the impostors. But they could not be punished because they were guilty of no criminal offense. And, besides, people should not have been so credulous.

A happy effect

     On Iowa industry the trick had a happy effect. It called nationwide attention to the rich layers of a mineral, which could be made into stucco or plaster of Paris, a substance used for coating or plastering the walls of houses. In 1871, Webb Vincent, S. T. Meservey, and George S. Ringland formed a partnership for the purpose of grinding and preparing the gypsum for plaster. Their mill was....

Page 97

�.the first of its kind west of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Fort Dodge stucco was used in the new State House (capitol) then being built in Des Moines. Several other stucco mills were built. In the nineties, whole trains loaded with stucco were daily sent from Fort Dodge to all parts of the country. The gypsum deposits are well-nigh inexhaustible. It has been estimated that at the present rate of production, it will last for 300,000 years. It is the most valuable deposit of its kind in the United States. In 1900 the stucco mills at Fort Dodge employed 1,200 men.

Questions and Exercises: How did James Watt improve the steam engine? What kind of engines are most common today? Distinguish between apprentice and journeyman. Why are factories sometimes called mills? Why didn't the big saw mills in Iowa use Iowa logs? Where were the big saw mills? Why is white pine especially good for lumber? How did the chinch bugs affect flour milling in Iowa? What were the two leading industries in Iowa in 1900? Who was George Douglas? J. F. Boepple? What metals have been mined in Iowa? What minerals are now mined in Iowa? What new method of coal mining has lately been introduced? What valuable product is made from gypsum? How long will the gypsum deposits near Fort Dodge last? Locate places named in this chapter?