1
Apr

Will Be an Army of Unemployed

   Posted by: admin   in Business

The Fort Dodge Messenger: April 1, 1904

Will Be an Army of Unemployed

Estimated That Nearly 1500 Men May Soon Be Idle in Webster County.

Will Be Felt in This City

Most of Men Either Live Here or in Vicinity and Counties Tributary.

As nearly as can be estimated at this time, about 1,400  men will be thrown out of employment in Webster county alone if the coal strike continues for any considerable length of time. There are in all something like 600 miners and men dependent on the coal industry for employment. Besides these there are the men employed in the brick yards, the gypsum mills, and other like industries, which cannot be run without coal.

There is little coal ahead at any of these institutions, and if the prospects for a settlement of the mining difficulties do not look bright within a few days, there will be no kilns fired at the brick yards. In such an event, the kilns all being full, the yards must of necessity be closed down. This would throw 150 to 200 men out of employment here in the city of Fort Dodge. There are two yards at Kalo and four at Lehigh, employing at least 175 men. These would also be forced to quit work for the same reasons.

The stucco mills of this city, it is estimated, employ all the way from 300 to 600 men and should all the mills close down as a result of the strike, as they will undoubtedly be forced to do unless they are able to secure coal for their boilers and for firing their kettles, these men also will be added to the list of the unemployed, bringing the number up to nearly a thousand and a half in the county. The result of so many unemployed men would be greatly felt in Fort Dodge, as practically the whole county is more or less tributary, and more than half the men affected are actual residents of the city or immediate vicinity.

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