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  "PageContent": "Roger Matile stumbling across local history, one post at a time…So, for 28 weekdays straight during last September and October I drove from Oswego up-river to what’s now Radiation Oncology of Advocate Christ Medical Center—formerly Dreyer Clinic’s Highland Avenue location—for treatment of a bit of prostate cancer they found after testing last summer.The treatments, using their high-tech linear accelerator, went just fine, but what was really interesting, and not a bit depressing, was driving past all the formerly busy factories that are no longer producing the products that fueled and greased the skids of progress in decades past.Depending on which way I drove up to the oncology department the number of those former factories was sobering. Driving up Ill. Route 31, I’d pass the former Caterpillar, Inc. plant that once employed some 6,500 people who commuted from as far away as LaSalle-Peru to manufacture heavy construction equipment; the Western Electric (later Lucent Technologies) plant that employed around 3,000 making telephones and some of the nation’s first computer modems; Lyon Metal Products, where more than 1,000 workers manufactured steel shelving, lockers, and boxes; All-Steel Equipment, where another couple thousand turned out shelving and office equipment; and then Lyon’s Plant Number 4 where a few hundred people manufactured office furniture.Oswego photographer Homer Durand snapped this photo of Caterpillar, Inc.’s brand new Oswego Township plant in 1958. (Little White School Museum collection)Jogging over to Highland Avenue on Prairie Street, I’d drive past the old Henry Pratt factory where hundreds worked making valves and other fittings; Equipto’s metal shelving and office equipment plant that employed a couple thousand; Barber-Green’s road-building equipment plant where another several thousand worked; and the old Pines Engineering building.None of those once-busy factories are manufacturing what they once did, although most are now the locations of dozens of other, smaller, operations. It was a sobering look at how the business of making things in the Fox River Valley have changed so much through the years and actually astonishing how many thousands of manufacturing jobs have been lost at the same time our population has been on such a meteoric rise.Here in Oswego, a strangely long list of manufacturing operations have come and gone, starting with the first one opening just a couple years after the first settlers arrived.The very first Oswego factory, was a tiny one, built by Merritt Clark in the mid-1830s on the west side of the Fox River just above the newly developing Village of Oswego to manufacture chairs. To the uninitiated, chairs look like pretty simple things to make—all you need is a seat, four legs, a back, and maybe arms is you want to get fancy. But take a good look at a wooden chair; I mean a REALLY good look and you’ll see the complicated series of angles where all those parts fit together.Clark’s little manufacturing operation was one of the first on the middle and upper Fox, but it was far from the last as the river’s flow was quickly harnessed to provide power to run mills and factories along its entire length. And, in fact, the Fox eventually became the most industrialized river in Illinois, featuring the most dams of any stream in the entire state.But at the same time millwrights were building their dams for waterpower, steam engines were also being developed to run manufacturing equipment.In 1835, New York businessman Isaac Townsend, and Charles A. Davis, a New York banker, bought the 960 acre Waish-kee-shaw Reserve in today’s NaAuSay Township a few miles south of Oswego.. Townsend came west himself to oversee the project, while Davis sent his brother, William Noble Davis, to look after his interests. Exactly why Townsend thought such an isolated spot would be a good industrial site has been lost to history, but Townsend had the money to see the project through, deciding to manufacture lumber, furniture, and farm machinery.To that end, he bought machinery, including a stationery steam engine to power it, in Buffalo, N.Y. and had it shipped through the Great Lakes to Chicago. From there, it was laboriously hauled across the prairie to the grove.It was easy enough to manufacture lumber and furniture, since Townsend’s operation was built in AuSable Grove, with plenty of available hardwood trees to harvest.But other items he manufactured posed bigger problems. For instance, in 1846, about three years after Townsend’s operation was up and running, Cyrus McCormick came out to Kendall County and sold Townsend the rights to manufacture his patented grain harvester, plus the rights to sell the harvesters he manufactured in a four county area.The Prairie Farmer, then the major agricultural newspaper for western farmers, noted in February of 1847 that Townsend in Kendall County “was constructing 40 more [harvesters] for his neighbors.”The following year, McCormick went into partnership with Charles M. Gray of Chicago to build reapers for the Midwestern prairie states, ”except in the small territory of D.J. Townsend of Kendall County.”Although Townsend was manufacturing reapers, the economics were against him. At that early date, there wasn’t even a railroad west of Chicago—everything had to move overland and the word primitive doesn’t even begin to describe the roads of that era. Moving raw materials to his remote factory on the prairie and transporting finished machines to customers must have been nothing short of a nightmare.Eventually, Townsend was forced to give up. The Ohio Cultivator farm newspaper of Jan. 15, 1850 reported that “D.J. Townsend of Au Sable Grove, Illinois, has ceased the manufacture of reapers after the close of the harvest of 1849.”In 1854, Daniel Townsend sold all his Kendall County property to Moses Cherry, a native of Buffalo, N.Y. for the then-grand sum of $30,000, the manufacturing operation was closed down for good, and Townsend retired to Niagara Falls.By 1847, Oswego had been voted as the Kendall County Seat and new manufacturing businesses were springing up. In the spring of that year, Truman Mudgett, who seems to have been a relative of Oswego founder Lewis B. Judson, opened a brewery along the current railroad tracks, probably where Bartlett Creek enters the Fox River. It was not successful, however. Then about 1870, another brewery was built along what’s now Ill. Route 25 about a quarter mile north of North Street. The stone brewery was built atop a spring that still flows out of the limestone underlying that part of town and meanders down to the Fox River. The brewery was also unsuccessful, however, closing after three or four years.Adam Armstrong built a broom factory on South Adams Street at the southwest corner of the intersection with Benton Street in 1854. The factory was a successful business enterprise for several years. Armstrong built his distinctive Greek Revival house with its cupola right across the street. While the broom factory is gone, the landmark Armstrong house survives.In 1855 wagonwright William Hoze was manufacturing wagons and carriages in his manufactory where his home was located at the southwest corner of Washington and Monroe streets.The first cheese factory in town opened in 1867 in the limestone commercial building at the west end of the Oswego bridge that was remodeled into Turtle Rock in the 1920s.As the Kendall County Record reported from Oswego in June of that year: “The old stone machine shop has been fitted up by Messrs Roe & Seely into a neat and thorough factory for the manufacture of cheese. These gentlemen are both from that renowned dairy district, Orange County, N.Y. Mr. Roe has been 12 years in the milk and cheese business an understand it in all its branches.”With no direct rail connection to Oswego, however, getting the factory’s products to market overland probably was instrumental in it’s closing after a few years.With the immanent arrival of the Ottawa, Oswego and Fox River Valley Rail Road in 1870, a variety of businesses began opening in Oswego. In August 1870, a group of Oswego business and professional men got together and established the Oswego Manufacturing Company.Shortly thereafter, Ashel Newton built what would today be called a business incubator building on the north bank of Waubonsie Creet where North Adams Street crosses it. The building, finished in June 1871 was equipped with a stationary steam engine. It first housed an apple cider pressing business, but was taken over by the Oswego Manufacturing Company soon after to manufacture, under license, Marshall Wind Engine windmills. Marshall Windmills featured a unique solid wheel.According to the June 10, 1875 Record: “One of the leading industries promised to Oswego is the manufacture of the Marshall Windmill by a company of which D.M. Haight is president and Capt. W.S. Bunn is general manager. The company occupies the building beside the railroad track, just across the creek; have a good steam engine to run planers, borers, and other machinery, and roomy paint room. They claim to have the best and cheapest windmill made. The advantages claimed are a solid wheel, which gives a third more power and runs in a lighter wind or a heavier wind than any other mill, and in a very violent storm the edge of the wheel is turned toward the wind and the engine is at rest. While other mills are sometimes blown to pieces, none of this make have as yet been broken by the storms. As nearly every farmer must sooner or later have something for raising water, they should carefully investigate this mill before investing. Among other advantages, the mill is wholly noiseless and may be erected on a dwelling house, where it will run without disturbing the inmates. Last Friday, Capt. Bunn had just finished work on the Carter farm above Oswego where he had put up a new mill, pump, pipes, tanks, etc., in good style and Mr. Spellman will no doubt enjoy the improvement. Three of the new wind engines may be seen from the factory running nicely–at Charley Roberts’, John S. Seely’s, and George Parker’s.”Also turning out windmills in Oswego was the firm of Armstrong & Buchanan.The 1870s in Oswego was a hotbed of lightning rod manufacturers and sales teams. Henry H. Farley, a local inventor and businessman turned out his own patented brand of lightning rod, while Ashel Newton, George Teller, and William Hoze sold various brands. Each year, the companies would send out crews of door-to-door salesmen that roamed the entire Midwest.Oswegoan Henry W. Farley not only invented improved lightning rods, but he also manufactured them in Oswego and sold them all over the Midwest using a corps of door-to-door salesmen.As the Record reported from Oswego on April 18, 1870: “The lightning rod establishments are now very busy in getting up and sending out teams. [Wagonwright] Oliver [Hebert] has got up some very nice looking wagons for them.”And while ice wasn’t exactly manufactured in Oswego, starting in 1875 it was harvested off the surface of the Fox River in back of the Parker dam. Eventually, more than a dozen huge ice houses were built to store the ice each winter, which was then shipped out during the rest of the year, some for home use in ice boxes and the rest to cool dressed pork and beef being shipped from Chicago to the East Coast market. It was a huge operation. In August 1880 alone, the ice company shipped 124 rail cars of ice from the company’s siding just north of modern Second Street.The Parker Commode in the Little White School Museum’s gallery illustrates the kind of furniture that was created at the Parker Furniture Factory.William Parker, who owned the mills on either bank of the Fox River at the dam just above the Village of Oswego—todays Troy and Millstone parks—decided to add a furniture factory to his sawmill on the river’s east bank. By early 1875, the furniture factory was turning out a variety of chairs, tables, and chests. One of the small chests manufactured from native black walnut at the Parker Furniture Factory is on exhibit at the Little White School Museum.One of the more interesting things made in Parker’s furniture factory was pool tables. As the Record reported Oct. 17, 1878: “The playing of billiards, and billiard tables have become quite disreputable with a large class of the people owing to the general connection with the saloons; still the game is one of the most scientific and most of the tables are gotten up with much mechanical skill; one of the neatest I ever saw lately has been manufactured at Wm. Parker & Son’s furniture factory and was bought by George Burghart.” Burghart—not to be confused with the Burkharts—was an Oswego saloonkeeper.In late 1876, William H. McConnell bought the old stone brewery just north of North Street and remodeled it into the Oswego Butter & Cheese Factory. The factory opened in the spring of 1877, and was an immediate success. Farmers for miles around Oswego had their milk and cream hauled to the factory for processing into cheese and butter as well as shipped out as milk and high-quality cream.Oswego Creamery located on Ill. Route 25 just north of North Street and east of North Adams Street. (Aurora Historical Society photo)In late April 1878, the Record reported from Oswego that “The daily receipts of milk at the Fox River Creamery are now over 10,000 pounds and increasing very rapidly.”Meanwhile, the three Richards brothers—Frank and Eugene and Marcius—were running a mini-Menlo Park invention emporium out of the downtown Oswego hardware store the family co-owned with Alfred Edson. One of the items they invented was a roller-hanger that allowed barn doors to slide open and closed.One of Oswego inventor Marcius Richards’ later sliding door hanger patents. His original invention was the basis for starting today’s Richards-Wilcox Company in Aurora.On Sept. 18, 1879, the Record’s Oswego correspondent reported: “Richards Bros. & Co., a firm lately organized for the manufacture of the Richards patent gate roller are doing a nice business; they occupy the Newton factory north of the Waubonsie and have a most complete set of machinery for the casting, punching and shaping the iron that enters into the work; all hands there are very busy and have been so since the enterprise started.”The door hangers proved so popular the Richards quickly outgrew the small Newton building and by March 1880, manufacturing had moved to Ottawa under the direction of one brother while brother Marcius and family moved to Aurora to test opportunities there. During the next couple decades, manufacturing moved to Aurora, the Richards merged with the Wilcox company and the Richards-Wilcox Company was established—it’s still in business and still selling the descendants of the Richards Brothers’ sliding door hardware.Oddly enough, the Richards-Wilcox Company’s official history fails to mention the firm’s Oswego roots or the Richards’ contributions to the company.But with the Richards’ departure, it didn’t take long for Ashel Newton’s building to be reoccupied after the Richards brothers left. The Record’s Oswego correspondent reported on Oct. 7, 1880: “A cotton batting factory is the latest enterprise in this town. It is established by Mr. Alschuler of Aurora, in the Newton building north of the Waubonsie.” Cotton batting was used for making quilts and clothing.In 1881, grocer David Haight began making vinegar in the basement of his store at the southeast corner of Main and Washington streets and a new creamery, the Partridge Butter Factory opened in the old Armstrong Broom Factory on South Adams Street. At the same time, wagonwright Oliver Hebert was producing road carts, wagons, carriages and buggys at his factory at Madison and Van Buren Streets. And in 1884 Piggott and Van Doozer began manufacturing mattresses stuffed with corn husks at their factory just steps away from Hebert’s wagon factory.This clip from the 1891 Sanborn Fire Insurance Company map of Oswego shows the Hebert wagon factory at Madison and Van Buren streets in Oswego and the mattress factory on the alley behind the wagon factory. (Little White School Museum collection)Gradually, those 19th Century factories closed as larger factories in distant big cities took over their output, doing it cheaper and faster. But a couple new factories did open in Oswego as the 20th Century began.In 1901 Oswego hardware store owner John Edwards invented and patented his own acetylene gas generator to supply gas for home, business, and church lighting. It became very popular locally, the Record’s Oswego correspondent reporting on May 8, 1901: “’Let there be light,’ and that the acetylene so thought Doc Woolley and James Pearce, who had it put in their residences by John Edwards, whose generator of the gas is considered the best extant.”King Flipper were one of the brands under which Oswego-made cigars were sold, as the “King Flipper” label in the box attests. “Oswego Illinois” is printed just to the right of the brand name. (Little White School Museum collection)In 1905 a cigar factory was established in the basement of the Schickler Block at the northwest corner of Main and Washington in downtown Oswego. By 1910, the factory was making and shipping more than 80,000 cigars a year. And at the end of World War I in 1919, the Morlock Wrapper & Skirt Company opened a clothing manufacturing operation in the old Star Roller Skating Rink that was located where today’s 60 Main Street Building—formerly Bohn’s Food Store—is located. The factory manufactured women’s clothing, but closed after a few years.Not until the late 1940s did another new factory open in Oswego. On May 8, 1940, under the headline, “Oswego Has New Factory Manufacturing Plaques,” the Record reported: “The Christian Art house began business in Oswego in May 1938, on a small scale in a small shop adjoining the Fred Willis plumbing shop. Ronald E. Smith was admitted into partnership with Dr. Horace A. Larsen, who designs and carves unique religious plaques, the manufacture of which Mr. Smith superintends. In February of this year a building permit was granted and the erection of a new plant began. It is a two-story structure, sturdy and attractive, made of concrete blocks and built in such a way that it may be converted into living quarters in later years if desired.”The Christian Art House factory on Polk Street in Oswego produced religions plaques until the early 1950s. Converted into an apartment house, the building still stands. (Little White School Museum collection)The factory produced religious-themed wall plaques, each of the armatures hand-carved by Rev. Larsen and the plaques hand-painted by Oswego women, until the early 1950s. After the factory closed, it was, as had been planned, turned into an apartment house which still stands on Polk Street just up the street a bit from the Little White School Museum. The Little White School Museum has an extensive collection of Christian Art House plaques, and the museum gallery features a Christian Art House exhibit.Today, a huge variety of products are manufactured in Oswego in both the Stonehill and Kendall Point business parks. But the era of manufacturing windmills, lightning rods, and cornhusk mattresses is so far in the village’s past that no one even remembers them.",
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