The Fort Dodge Messenger: July 7, 1905

Storage Charges Cause Trouble

Patrons of the Railroads Do Not Like to Pay Storage Charges

Hurts Mail Order Houses

The Rule Adopted by the Illinois Central and Iowa Car Service Association Went Into Effect July 1 – Much Complaining From Patrons.

The rule recetnly [sic] adopted by the Illinois and Iowa Car Service Association, of which association all the western railroads are members, has caused considerable trouble here. The rule was to the effect that all shipments in less than car load lots, not taken from the freight warehouse within twenty-four hours of the time the freight was received should be charged storage rates.

The storage rates, while comparatively small would yet amount to a large sum within a short time, should the freight not be taken from the house. A charge of five cents a day for each hundred pounds is paid, so that should the shipment weigh four or five hundred pounds and remain in the warehouse a few days the owner would soon have a bill to pay that he would not like.

A fraction of one hundred pounds and a fraction of a day are charged at the same rate. Thus all people who are expecting a shipment of freight from any point would do well to look the matter up occasionally and see that it is not laying around the warehouse. The railroads send a postal card to all owners of freight immediately upon its arrival, but this card might not be delivered in time to allow the owner a chance to get it out before the storage rates went into effect, so the method of calling up the freight office daily is a good plan to keep from paying freight storage charges.

Although the business men do not like the idea of paying storage charges very well, in the end it will help their business as it will hurt the business of the mail order houses. As the customers of the mail order houses reside mostly in the country, the freight will in all probability lay around the warehouse for several days before the farmers are able to get in and get the shipment. This will cost the farmers so much that in the end it will be cheaper to buy of home merchants.

The railroads have for some time been charging storage on all car load shipments, but the first day storage was charged on smaller shipments was Wednesday as Sunday and the Fourth both being holidays, the rule did not go into effect until the fifth.

The Fort Dodge Messenger: July 7, 1905

Iowa Butter for Use in the Navy

Creameries of the State Will Be Called Upon For Large Amount

The Local Product May Go

Fort Dodge Company Not Yet Called upon But May Contribute Before Contract is Filled – All Must Be of the Best Quality.

Fort Dodge people may be interested in the news that Iowa will furnish nearly all the butter for the consumption of the sailors in the United States navy next year, and that possibly some of the product of this city may go to make more palatable the hard tack of the boys who uphold the nation’s honor on the blue expanse. Four hundred thousand pounds or over is needed and all the big creameries of the state will be called upon to aid in furnishing the supply. Last year much of the butter consumed on naval vessels was bought from this state, the Sioux City creamery putting most of it on the market.

This season a much larger amount will be used and creameries all over the state will aid in putting forth the required amount.

The local manufactury as yet has had no call to put forth their product for the purpose but when the time comes those in the contract may be so rushed in filling the orders that resort will be made to the butter that is made in this city.

At Clarinda the big creamery is busily engaged in making 200,000 pounds of this butter, while the Monticello creamery has a similar contract.

Butter for the navy must all be put in three-pound cans, which are hermetically sealed, placed in sawdust packed boxes and then kept in cold storage at zero temperature, until ordered shipped to some ocean port to stock an American man of war. Swift & Company, the big packers of Chicago, secured the butter contract from the navy department and then sublet the immense contract to Iowa and Kansas creameries. As soon as the butter is packed it is sent to Chicago to be kept in the big cold storage buildings of the company until it is needed by the navy.

The government requires a somewhat different butter for its navy thatn is placed on the table for a landsman. It has been found that butter to stand the long trips of the war vessels to all climates must contain a low per cent of water and a high per cent of salt, and all the navy butter is made according to this requirement. The contracting companies are required to guarantee that this butter will keep for at least three years. In order to have the best possible dairy butter, the government also requires that its navy butter be packed only in the month of June and July. It is placed in three pound hermetically sealed tin cans.

At Clarinda a new process for sealing the cans has been successfully adopted. A cement composition is placed on the edge of the can top and then the can top is crimped firmly by a machine into this cement, thus making it air tight. Other creameries have had to solder each can and at Sioux City last year, when the navy butter was put up there, a force of nearly fifty solderers alone were kept busy. The new sealing process at Clarinda requires the services of only two or three men for the same amount of work.

For this butter in cans the government pays 29 cents a pound, which with the present butter market hovering about 20 cents a pound, is expected to give a good profit to the creameries, though the packing is more expensive than that required for the ordinary marketing of butter in the United States.

The Fort Dodge Messenger: July 2, 1903

Plymouth Gypsum Company Organized

New $200,000 Corporation Will Build Large Mill and Enter the Market for Business.

Capacity 400 Tons 24 Hours.

L.E. Armstrong, J.T. Cheney, and M.D. O’Connell Are Incorporators of New Company Which Will Be Ready for Business February 1.

Every important step is completed in the organization of a new gypsum mill company in Fort Dodge.

The Plymouth Gypsum company is the title of the new company and it is due to the business sagacity and untiring zeal of L.E. Armstrong, founder of the Plymouth Clothing House of Fort Dodge that this important new industry is a substantial fact. Mr. Armstrong has been studying and planning for two years to do this, and  as a result of this mature though his associates in the new company feel encouraged to believe that they will meet with success.

Mr. Armstrong will be the president of the Plymouth Gypsum company and John T. Cheney treasurer.  The capital required is already subscribed. Teh capital stock of the corporation will be $200,000 ($4,789,896 today), divided into 2,000 shares of $100 ($2,395) each. The organization was completed on a basis of $50 a share ($1,197), so there is $100,000 ($2,394,948) capital fully paid in.

Mention of this new company was made in The Messenger early in the spring, when Mr. Armstrong secured the 30-acre tract of land immediately south of Oleson Park, adjoining and lying south of the Illinois Central tracks. That will be the site of the mill and careful underground examination shows that there is a splendid gypsum deposit which will be extracted by the modern mining methods. Thirty acres of the land is on the north side of the Illinois Central tracks, and forty acres on the south side.

The mill will be a four kettle plant with two dryers. The capacity will be four hundred tons per twenty-four hours. Artices (sic) of incorporation will be filed at once and operations on the mine will be begun at once. They plan to have the mill complete, and ready to fun, February 1, 1904. Mr. Armstrong will undertake the management of the business, and that means there will be plenty of energy and ability shown.

The surface value of the tract of land owned by the Plymouth Gypsum company is very valuable, being within one-half mile of the street car line and within one-quarter of a mile of the city limits.

The Fort Dodge Messenger: July 2, 1903

New Auto Co. Decides to Build

Has Purchased Site 200 by 160 Feet, West of Great Western Round House.

Start Work at Once.

Plans Are Now Being Prepared and Work on Machine Shop Will Commence Next Week – Four Buildings Are Contemplated.

The DeLaura Auto Manufacturing company will at once begin the erection of its plant in Fort Dodge on a site just west of the Great Western round house, where a piece of land 200 by 160 feet has been purchased. A side track will be run to the site of the new factory by the railroad company.

Final arrangements regarding the purchase of the site were made at a meeting of the board of directors of the new company held on Wednesday evening, at which Mr. DeLaura was present.

The buildings which will ultimately comprise the plant are a machine shop and boiler room, a paint shop, a blacksmith and wood working shop and a foundry. The first two will be erected at once. The machine shop will be 35 by 100 feet in dimensions, with an addition for the boiler room and the pain shop will be 35 by 60 feet.

Work on the plant will be hurried along as fast as possible. Plans are now being prepared, and it is hoped that it will be possible to commence work on the machine shop which will first be erected by next week, and that the factory can begin operations within five or six weeks.

(Editor’s note: This company was first mentioned on June 19, 1903.)

The Fort Dodge Messenger: July 1, 1903

Vincent Saloons May be Enjoined

Application for Injunction Will Be Argued Before Judge Evans on July 3

Petitions Are Placed On File

Action is Brought Against Two Saloons of Vincent on Claim That They Have Been Operated Contrary to Provisions of Mulct Law.

Applications for injunctions to close the two saloons which are now in operation in Vincent will be argued before Judge Evans in Hampton on Friday, July 3. Notice to this effect was served on the proprietors of these saloons on friday and petitions reciting the causes upon which the plaintiffs base their action have been filed in the office of the county clerk.

The injunctions, if granted by Judge Evans, will have the effect of making Vincent a dry town, as these two saloons are the only ones operating there.

The plaintiffs allege thru their petitions that the two saloons have violated the provisions of the mulct law, which governs the sale of liquor in the state of Iowa, in several particulars, and ask that the court shall enjoin them from operating their saloons in Vincent on the ground of abating a nuisance.

The two saloons against which this action is directed, are owned by Olson and Thompson, and by Colby Brothers & Company. E.S. Benjamin appears as paintiff (sic) on one petition, and Mr. Benjamin and J. Wadson on the other.

The Fort Dodge Messenger: July 1, 1903

Mine is Lighted by Electricity

United States Gypsum Company Inaugrates (sic) Improvement at Mineral City Mill.

Is Running Day and Night.

Both Mill and Mine are Thoroughly Lighted – Drilling is Also Done by Electricity – Improvements at Blanden Mill.

Improvements have just been completed in the Mineral City mill and mine of the United States Gypsum company, which the officials of the company in this city claim,  make it the most modern and best equipped mill in the country.

Both mill and mine have been fitted up with electric lights thruout, and the work is now carried on there day and night without intermission. The drilling is also done by electricity. These improvements have only just been completed, and the mill is now running under them.

The Blanden mill has also been greatly improved by the addition of new machinery.

One of the mills and mines of the company has been closed down and the men transferred to the Mineral City mill, but Manager Duncombe stated this morning that this was merely temporary and quite in accordance with the usual policy of the company when it was necessary to close the mill for repairs. The company had some trouble with water in the mines during the heavy rains, but this is now entirely over, and the damage done is less than was expected.

The Fort Dodge Messenger: June 28, 1905

Slot Machines Taken Down

Orders Given to Have Them Removed Thru the City.

Complaints Have Been Made Against Them – Order Stopping Practice Not Permanent.

Fathers and mothers who fear the effect of the temptations of the slot machine upon their boys will be given for a time at least, a respite from their fears. Yesterday afternoon the propritors (sic) of the places in the city where slot machines are run were notified to take them down.

The action is the result of a number of complaints that have recently been filed before the officials of the city. The doers (?) realizing that though the running of slot machines is an entirely legitimate practice as long as they are not too heavily patronized by youths and young men decided that the complaints that had come in to them were prima facie evidence that the machines were fast becoming a nuisance in the city and decided that some steps should be taken to curtail them, consequently their action in notifying the owners to take them down.

No permanent order had been issued against the contrivances, however, and should it be deemed advisable to allow them to run later on in the year the merchants will no doubt be given permission to put them up.

The Fort Dodge Messenger: June 23, 1903

Sewing Machine War is Spreading

Singer and Wheeler-Wilson Companies Now in Fierce Competition in Webster City.

Methods are Too Strenuous

Warrants for Arrest of Seven Over Officious Agents Have Been Sworn Out and Placed in Hands of Webster City Police.

The Singer-Wheeler-Wilson sewing machine war, which raged with violence in this city some time ago, has spread to Webster City, where arrest seems likely to follow the strenuous efforts of some of the sewing machine agents. Warrants for the arrest of seven of these ubiquitous gentlemen were issued on Monday.

The agents for whom warrants have been issued are all from Boone.

The Webster City Freeman Tribune gives the following particulars:

The sewing machine agents who have been flooding the city with the Singer and Wheeler & Wilson machines for the past ten days, will run up against some trouble this afternoon if the program of the city police force is carried out. Warrants have been issued for seven of them upon the charge of selling their goods about the city without a license.

Since the advent of these representatives of two rival companies in the city life among sewing machine agents seems to have become peculiarly strenuous. Their modus operandi has been to leave a machine at a home whether it was needed or not, provided only that the housewife would give it a trial. Things went along smoothly until competition began to grew fierce between the two companies when each started in on a crusade of making sales on almost any kind of a basis.

It was when this stage of the business was reached that the agents left a machine at the home of W.J. Biernatzki. They removed his old machine which they were to take as part payment on the new one should it prove satisfactory. The machine was not just what was wanted, so Mr. Biernatzki says, and he made a demand on the agents for a return of the old machine and a removing of the new.

Through some misunderstanding or other the agents refused to do this, in consequence of which Mr. Biernatzki informed on them and the warrants are now made out for their arrest and will probably be served this evening. The agents all hail from Boone, instead of Fort Dodge, as mentioned Saturday.

The Fort Dodge Messenger: June 22, 1903

Lehigh Home Blown Up By Dynamite

Residence of Henry Lewis is Wrecked By Explosion of a Dynamite Bomb.

Buiding (sic) is Badly Shattered.

Lewis, Wife and Two Children Escaped Injury as Explosion Was at Rear of House – Strike Troubles Supposed Responsible for Outrage.

Lehigh, June 22 – At 1:30 on Saturday morning, the home of Henry Lewis in this place, was partially wrecked by the explosion of a dynamite bomb under the kitchen door step. Lewis, with his wife and two children were asleep in the house at the time, but they escaped injury on account of the fact that the sleeping rooms are in the front part of the house, while the greatest force of the explosion was felt in the rear of the building.

The house, itself, was badly damaged. The back door was crushed in, the steps destroyed, plastering was knocked down all over the building and the roof was raised by the terrific force of the explosion.

Mr. Lewis has been working in the Lehigh Clay Works, being employed in place of the strikers, and it is supposed that this fact accounts for the outage. The general supposition is that the dynamite was exploded by some of the disaffected workmen at the Clay Works.

The occurrence has aroused much feeling here, as it is almost miraculous that none of the family were seriously injured.

It is supposed that a stick of dynamite with a fuse attached, was placed under the porch, the fuse was lighted, and the guilty parties had plenty of time to make their escape.