Madison County, Illinois - Chapter 48: Resources and Manufactures, 1912

Utilization of Natural Resources - Mining and Manufacture of Clay - Stone In¬ dustries - Basis of Industrial Expansion - Varied Industrial System.

The natural resources of a county are the basis of its wealth and development. Con¬ sidered in this light the resources of Madi¬ son county has a most important bearing on the history of its industrial progress. The exhaustless deposits of coal in this county are its greatest source of wealth and have been considered in chapter XXIV. Its extensive tracts of valuable timber have also been spoken of. The western portion of the county is diversified with hills and valleys, and the streams are all skirted with forests that fur¬ nish the adjacent prairies with an ample sup¬ ply for fuel and building purposes. The cen¬ tral and eastern portions of the county are generally level or rolling, and small prairies occupy the highlands between the streams. The general elevation of the highlands is from 150 to 300 feet above the level of the Missis¬ sippi. On the western border the great American Bottom, averaging about five miles in width, lies between the bluffs and the Mis¬ sissippi, a section of unsurpassed fertility. It was called by the early settlers the "Land of Goshen." The soil on the American Bottom is a mellow, sandy loam. This Bottom was once the bed of the river and the Sand Ridge, so called, and famous for its melons, is an ancient sand-bar left by the receding waters. The soil on the uplands is generally a dark, chocolate-colored loam, except on the river bluffs where it is of a lighter color, from an admixture of the marly sands of the loess. The uplands and bottoms, as well, produce fine crops of cereals and other staple crops. The loess attains its greatest thickness on the river bluffs, ranging from forty to eighty feet. The drift deposits of the county consist mainly of vellow and brown clays. At the base of the deposits is usually, the geologists claim, a bed of blue, plastic clay.

The lower carboniferous limestones of the county include a thin outlier of the Chester group, the St. Louis limestone and the upper layer of the shales of the Keokuk group. The St. Louis limestone is the most important and is well exposed between the mouth of the Piasa and Alton. At the base of the St. Louis limestone there is a bed of hydraulic lime¬ stone, or cement rock, which outcrops in the valleys at Clifton Terrace. The scene is eight to ten feet thick. It also outcrops on the banks of Piasa creek in the adjacent county of Jersey. The cement used in the building of the Eads bridge piers at St. Louis, was quar¬ ried and burned at Clifton.

I now come to the progressive utilization of these natural resources in the industrial de¬ velopment of the county. The first of these brought into use by the pioneers was the abun¬ dant timber. Next to food, which the wild game furnished, the prime necessity was shelter. Thus of the county's resources tim¬ ber was first used as material for the rude logcabins that were the first homes of the pio¬ neers. Next came the utilization of the soil in the planting and cultivation of crops. Bet¬ ter buildings were soon a necessity and crude saw mills were erected to convert the timber into boards, sills and rafters, and then came equally crude water power and band mills to grind the grain from the farms. Thus mills to utilize the resources of greatest present necessity were the beginning of manufactur¬ ing enterprises in the county. Of the prog¬ ress in the cultivation of the soil and its value as a source of wealth details have been given elsewhere.

One of the earliest contrivances for mak¬ ing meal from corn consisted of a strip of tin pierced with holes. By rubbing an ear of corn on the rough surface the meal sifted through. An improvement on this was the hand mill made of two mill stones, one of which was made to revolve over the other, the corn being fed in small quantities through an opening in the upper stone. The band mill, run by horses or oxen, came next. This consisted of an upright shaft with projecting arms, some fifteen feet long, revolving around it. The animals were hitched to these arms and being driven around in a circle provided the power which ran the grinder. The capa¬ city of these mills was about twelve bushels of corn per day. Saw mills and grist mills run by water power succeeded but did not displace the band mills, at least for some years. William and John Whiteside at¬ tempted to build a water power mill on Wood river, as early as 1806, but their effort was not successful. This enterprise was on the future site of Milton, where the Edwardsville- Alton road now crosses. Robert Harri¬ son operated a saw and grist mill on Cahokia creek, four miles north of Edwardsville where he also conducted a pottery. He later re¬

Governor Coles reports seeing a water mill on Cahokia creek, west of Edwardsville, when he first visited the country in 1815. This must have been the Kirkpatrick mill. In 1818 two saw mills and a grist mill were in opera¬ tion at Milton on Wood river. In 1817 a band mill was erected on Governor Coles' farm, or the farm subsequently owned by him, in Pin Oak township four miles east of Ed¬ wardsville. It was run by George Coventry and later by W. L. May by whom it was re¬ moved to Edwardsville. In 1818 Josias Randle built a cog wheel mill at Edwardsville. John Messinger was the mill wright. The Randle mill was converted into a steam mill in 1832. George Moore had a band mill on his farm two miles east of Upper Alton at an early date. There were others in Hamel, Alhambra, Jarvis, Marine and other town¬ ships. A cog wheel mill was built by Abel Moore, in 1823 or 1824 on his farm between the forks of Wood river. William Rabb built a four story water mill in Collinsville township. He sold it in 1820 to Jos. Hertzog who added a distillery. The Collins Brothers established a distillery at Collinsville prior to 1820, which they afterwards discontinued on moral grounds at great pecuniary loss. There was also a distillery at Milton as early as 1818 as well as two saw mills. With the progress of the settlements came steam flour¬ ing mills.

The Alton Manufacturing Company, capi¬ tal stock S50.000, was one of the earliest in¬ dustrial corporations authorized by the state. The act was effective February 1, 1883. By it David R. Griggs, Stephen Griggs, William Manning, W. S. Gilman, John T. Hudson, Elijah Lincoln, John Manning, William Mil¬ ler, Xathanial Griggs, Nathaniel Cobb, A. D. Weld, Jr., John Griggs and Thomas Griggs, were constituted a body corporate for the manufacture of cotton and woolen goods, hemp, flax, grain, lumber, machinery, or either of them. The second section provided for the building of a flour mill, forty by sixty feet, four stories high, to be run by steam. It is understood that this enterprise was in¬ augurated in 1831 by William Manning and developed into the above corporation. The flour mill built was a large one. Farmers brought their wheat to it from as distant sec¬ tions as Greene and Sangamon counties.

Contrast the primitive band mills, cog wheel and water power mills with the mam¬ moth flour mills of to-day which are seen in almost every town in the county. The two largest of these are those of the Sparks Mill¬ ing Co., and the Standard Milling Co., of Alton, with a capacity each of 2,500 barrels every twenty-four hours. They illustrate the marvelous growth of the milling industry in Madison.

The clay deposits of the county were early brought into use for the making of brick to furnish more substantial buildings. What is believed to be the oldest brick house in the county, the Col. Judy residence, is still stand¬ ing at Peters' station on the Clover Leaf. Next in order of utilization came the quarry¬ ing of rock and the making of lime. The first lime made in the county, in what is now Alton, was burned on the west bank of Shields' branch, on the site of what is now W. M. Sweetser's lumber yard. It was made in 1815 by Jacob Judy. The method was primitive: Large logs were heaped together in a pile and the rocks placed on top. Then fire was applied and when the logs were burned to ashes the rocks were converted into lime. In 1818 the first lime kiln was built on the same site, it is understood, by Maj. C. W. Hunter who, doubtless, utilized the lime in building the first brick house in what is now Alton, in 1819. This house is still standing

The clay or shale, found at the base of coal seam No. 1, was early used in making brick and tile and has since proved of inestimable value. It occurs near Alton in the outcrop of coal seam No. 11 at the head of Hop Hol¬ low, and along Wood river and its branches before that stream enters the Bottom. It has been mined for many years and for a long period was used in making all kinds of earthen ware in the Upper Alton potteries. It is now utilized vastly more extensively in the manufacture of vitrified and building brick in immense quantities at North Alton and in the making of drain tile, sewer pipe, etc, at East Alton. The output of these great plants is something enormous and is detailed elsewhere.

This clay seam is found sixteen feet thick, in a shaft 316 feet deep at Collinsville. It is owned by the Hydraulic Press Brick Com¬ pany of St. Louis, Mo. This company mines this clay very extensively, using it in two brick and terra cotta works at Collinsville, also shipping the clay to St. Louis to their brick plants there. In this same shaft there is also a coal seam, 186 feet down, seam six to seven feet thick. The company also mines this coal,, hoisting coal and clay alternate parts of the day. This clay seam is singularly valuable as fire brick and can be made from the upper layers of the clay, and buff brick, terra cotta work and sewer pipe from the clay in the lower layers of the seam. The county is wonderfully rich in this deposit as it can be found in all sections underlying coal seam No. 1. In former years this clay was extensively mined at Marine for the manufacture of both fire and building brick.

carried on for over ninety years. The upper part of the St. Louis limestone is of superior quality, being an almost pure carbonate of lime. No other lime- made in the Mississippi valley equals it in purity. Fifty years ago Alton kilns supplied all the river town with lime, but its trade in this building staple is not as great as present owing to the opening of many other kilns along the bluffs of the upper river, but it is still a leading industry. The abundance of timber and cheap coal in the vicinity and superior shipping facilities by river and rail will assure its continuance as a permanent industry. Beginning with a log pile in 1815, in lieu of a kiln, the business rapidly expanded so that in 1857 there were twenty kilns at Alton and their annual prod¬ uct averaged 210,000 barrels. This also caused a lively demand for barrels and made cooperage a prominent industry likewise, the material being supplied by the adjacent tim¬ ber.

Building stone has been, likewise from the earliest settlement, a leading product of the bluff quarries and the demand therefor from abroad, as well as at home, has always been active. The supply is inexhaustible; the en¬ tire thickness of the limestone deposit be¬ tween the mouth of the Piasa and Alton is given by geologists as 300 feet, enough to supply the country for ages to come.

Next to the demand for building stone comes that for macadam for street and roadway im¬ provements. In former days this was labor¬ iously produced by hand labor, now great steam crushers perform the work. But the present is the "age of cement" and the de¬ mand for crushed stone and screenings keeps a long string of crushers constantly at work sending out train loads daily. Concrete is rapidly supplanting stone for building and bridge work and displacing brick for side¬ walks.

Here then we have as a basis of the present industrial expansion : ( 1 ) A soil of unsur¬ passed fertility the harvests from which require great industrial enterprises to handle them: mills, elevators, agricultural implement factories, and the building of railroads and steamboats. (2) Clay for building brick, chimneys and sidewalks. (3) Shale, for vitrified brick for street paving, buff brick and terra cotta, also stoneware, sewer pipe and drain tile. (4) Limestone, for lime, building stone, macadam and crushed stone for concrete. (5) Hydraulic limestone, or cement rock, for any use to which cement is applicable. (6) Abundance of good timber for fuel or manufacturing. (7) An inex¬ haustible deposit of coal under almost the entire surface of the county. (8) An equal¬ ly boundless supply of the best river sand.

These vast resources are the foundation for an industrial system unsurpassed in the state and which is now being exploited and developed on as gigantic a scale as the fol¬ lowing industrial details relating to Alton and embraced in their census of 1910, will dem¬ onstrate : There were 69 establishments in 1909, and the value of products was $10,096,- 000, an average per establishment of approxi¬ mately $146,000.

The value of products represents their selling value or price at the plants as actually turned out by the factories during the census year, and does not necessarily have any rela¬ tion to the amount of sales for that year. The values under this head also include the amount received for work done on materials furnished by others.

This last item represents the difference be¬ tween the cost of materials used and the value of products, after the manufacturing pro¬ cesses have been expended upon them.

The above figures are for the year 1909. Since then there has been material expansion and the limits of the city have been extended to include Upper Alton. What is known as the Alton manufacturing district extends from Alton to Edwardsville Crossing. It is one of the largest in the state of Illinois. It makes between $35,000,000 and $40,000,000 of finished products per year. In this respect it stands fifth as a manufacturing district in Illinois.

Figures obtained by state factory inspect¬ ors show that in this entire Alton manufac¬ turing district there is a total of 8,429 per¬ sons employed, both male and female, of which 7,556 are male and 873 are female.

The state factory inspection service in¬ cludes all manufacturing, commercial and professional establishments employing labor. The total number of these in the Alton dis¬ trict is 784, made up as follows : Alton proper, 726; Wood river, 26; East Alton, 28; Fed¬ eral, 4. The last inspection made in the win¬ ter of 1912 showed the total number of strictly manufacturing concerns in whole or part, of the district is 89, of which 78 are in Alton proper, 7 in East Alton, 1 in Wood River and 3 in Federal.

In Alton proper the inspectors found the fol¬ lowing plants : Bakeries, 3 ; brick, 1 ; box, 1 ; breweries, 2 ; cigars, 7 ; confectioneries, 5 ; cooperages, 2 ; flour and feed, 3 ; flowers, 4 ; harness, 5 ; agricultural implements, 1 ; laun¬ dries, 2; machinery and foundries, 4; millin¬ ery, 6; planing mills, 4; automatic paper wrapping machine, 1 ; crushed stone manu¬ factories, 6; soft drinks, 3; glass, 1; railway tools, 1 ; job printing, 4; meat packing house, 1 ; ice cream, 4 ; ice plants, 2 ; paper boxes, 2 ; wood boxes, 1 ; sheet metal and stamping, 1 ; buggies, 1.