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□ INDUSTRYContinued from 1Gated a small factory on Milwaukee Street. He sold out in 1852 to J.F. Morse, who, with partner S.A. Martin, moved the factory to the river raceway in 1860. In 1864, W.B. Britton. Fenner Kimball and W.H. Ashcraft established the Janesville Furniture factory on the raceway.Also in 1846. Bates Jenkins consolidated much of the town’s harness manufacture by buying out H S Woodruff, Chase Joslyn. A. Shearer, William Wright, H.H. Meander and J.M. Riker• 1848: First carriage and wagon factory owned and operated by John King on southeast corner of Milwaukee and Bluff streets, where M.S. Ryckman constructed the first buggy ever built in Janesville. King also had a shop on the other side of the street, which he operated until he built the Janesville City Hotel in 1851. He died the noxt year.King had sold his manufacturing plant to Robert Hodge, who took Herman Buchholz as a partner in1860.Also in 1848, William Hodson operated the city’s first brewery. Fire destroyed the building, but Hodson rebuilt and sold to Henry Brunster, who later sold the building to Pixley, Kimball Co. In 1853, John Buob built a brewery on the river on the north end of town.The city’s brewing history continued in 1856 when Marsh Wagoner erected the Black Hawk Brewery near the south end of Main Street.After a few years, they sold to John Roethinger who enlarged the plant and called it the Janesville Steam Brewery until it burned in T872. He built the Cold Spring Brewery on the same site and sold it later to Rose Bender. John G. Todd established an ale brewery here in 1869 and did a large business for many years.In 1848. Farmers’ Mill was put up on the south side of Milwaukee Street by Andrew B. Johns, who sold it the same year to F.H. Jackman, who ran it until 1857. He sold out in stages to C.A. Alden and John Clark. “During the wheat-raising days of southern Wisconsin, this property was considered one of the best mills of its day,” according to the 1908 history.• 1849: Frank Whittaker started the manufacture of woolen goods here in a four-story brick building at Monterey, where the city’s lower water race was. It was a three-set mill that could turn out 12,000 yards a month. Whitaker sold the factory in 1856 to Mrs. A. Hyatt Smith but bought it back in 1860, only to resell it to a syndicate in 1868.After two disappointing years,” the Hodson Mill was bought in 1848 by Hamilton Richardson, who with his associate William Truesdell, changed it into a flouring mill. This property evidently seems to have carried a jinx because it almost was destroyed by floods twice, rebuilt both times and finally fell victim to “short yields of grain and financial depressions.”Iron works starts• 1852: The Janesville IronWorks was established on River Street by Joseph H. Budd and manufactured all kinds of machinery and farm implements.The iron works employed from 75 to 100 men. They made stationary and portable engines, boilers, threshing machines, reapers, plows and cornshellers among other things, and in 1855 the iron works turned out $70,000 of products and were expanding• 1853: The year marked the birth of Doty Manufacturing Co., cited in the 1908 history as an institution that “has withstood the ravages of time and survived through many changes of ownership.” Pixley, Kimball Olsen built the general machine shop on the site ofthe old Hodson brewery and startedmaking agricultural implements.A New York outfit, Phelps, Dodge Co., bought them out shortly thereafter, and it sold the plant to Hamilton and R.J. Richardson in 1865. They reorganizedthroughout the United States.But their success was noted and business mimicked to the point that washing machine factories “were started all over the country.” The local firm then turned its energy tomills.Also in 1853, C. Sexton built a factory on the west side of the river to make plows and cultivators. His son, H.B., later joined him in the business.Pioneer broom maker• 1855: Jerry Bates pioneered broom manufacturing here. After serving with Union forces in the Civil War, he resumed business and continued for many years.• 1856: The city’s gas works were built by a “stock company which included the leading citizens of the town.” The gas company was on Bluff Street, and J. Woodward was the contractor. Hiram Merrill was the superintendent and a large stockholder. But “the company did not get on smoothly at first and encountered financial difficulties, and the property passed into the hands of Milwaukee parties.”• 1859: F A. Wheeler started a woolen factory under the name of Wheeler Manufacturing Co. After he died, his son, C.F., operated the business under the name Lawrence and Atwood. The factory had a capacity of 1,000 yards a day and was a favorite of people who used spinning wheels because they would get their roll carding done there.• 1874: The Janesville Cotton Manufacturing Co. was established on the upper raceway, north of Milwaukee Street on River Street. “At that time it was the only factory of that kind in the West. It was a bold business venture, which required courage and ability of high order.”The three original buildings still stand, and two of them will be renovated into apartments as part of Janesville’s current downtown redevelopment.The factory was enlarged in 1877, and the work force grew to 250 people, with a payroll of $70,000. The factory had 400 looms and inThe business expanded in 1883 with the construction of a large factory and power plant on the lower race at Monterey at a cost of aquarter million dollars. Four hundred people worked for the company then.But excessive freight rates for cotton because of the great distance it had to be brought and themaking punching and sheaving machines, grain drills and wind high prices paid to the companv’sthe business and formed a stock company that included the interests of Metropolitan Washington Machine Co., New York. They engaged almost exclusively in making Doty Washington washing machines and by 1874 were making 8,000 machines a year to sell1878 manufactured 5,350,900 yards of sheeting, which was valued at $310,000.Cullenconstructed the Wisconsin Telephone Co. Milwaukee Street in 1947. Note Colvin's Baking Co. and Parker Pen Co. in*operatives forced the ambitious enterprise into a financial a corner. In 1886, a new corporation, the Janesville Cotton Mills, formed to take over the business. It ran it for a while longer but eventually the plant was sold to the Janesville Electric Co.Also in 1874, the Janesville Pickling and Packing Works was established.Shoe company opens• 1875: The Janesville Shoe Manufacturing Co. started making shoes at the corner of South Main and South Second streets. Three years later, the business passed to the Wisconsin Shoe Co., and the business continued at a $200,000-a-year clip until it burned in January 1888.Three other boot and shoe companies followed in Janesville Shoe’s footsteps.• 1877: John Thoroughgood and F. Stevens started making cigar boxes and cigar box lumber after buying out several small businesses established by Fred Morse three years earlier. The factory was at the foot of Pease Court, and Henry A. Doty began another cigar box operation just north of the Thoroughgood factory.• 1880: Chester Bailey, former superintendent of Janesville Cotton Manufacturing, started Badger State Warp Mills near the west end of the upper dam and later began making cotton batting. He sold the latter business to T O. and Fred Howe, and the operation, incorpo-building on E.background.rated in 1902 as the Rock River Cotton Co., grew steadily until in 1908 it occupied nearly the whole block between Franklin, River, Wall and West Bluff streets.The Howe brothers also were “extensively interested” in the Janesville Machine Co., which is was incorporated in 1881.• 1881: Janesville Machine was incorporated by James Harris, J.B. Crosby and others with $100,-000 to take over the operation of Harris Manufacturing Co. on Jan 1,1882.Harris Manufacturing was started by Harris and others to continue the business started by Harris, Guild Angell: the manu-□ Turn to INDUSTRY/*G
Newspaper Details
Janesville Gazette
Janesville, Wisconsin, US
Wed, Aug 14, 1985
Page 46
Full Page
Clipped by
Hedberg P.
Wisconsin, USA 22 Sep 2022
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