PAGE 12 ■ BICENTENNIAL
THE HERALD ■ MONDAY, JULY 16, 2018
Early businesses: Some here, some gone From Herald Staff Reports
able part by men who were woodworkers themselves. Like the original plant, this factory soon found sufficient demand for desks, discontinued its original plan to produce novelty furniture and on April 25, 1927, changed its name to Indiana Desk Co. Joseph M. Sturm, the first manager, and Joseph Jahn, superintendent, were active in the organizational work. Both men were instrumental later in organizing other plants.
Meet some of Dubois County’s heritage businesses: Jasper Desk While Custer was dodging bullets and arrows at his last stand at Little Bighorn under the leadership of U.S. Commander-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant, desks and household furniture were being built from the ground up by a team of cabinet and furniture makers at the Jasper Desk Company, albeit under a different name. That was 1876. In 1895 at the Kansas City World’s Fair, the company received an award for its desk. In 1906, the company was shipping a rail carload of desks to San Francisco to replace some destroyed in the great earthquake and fire. In 1960, President John F. Kennedy, while campaigning, gave a televised appeal from Washington, D.C., while seated at a walnut conference unit made by the Jasper Desk Company. Starting out, a trio of entrepreneurs — John Gramelspacher, Sebastian Keubler and Frank Joseph — bought the Alles Brothers Furniture Company from the Alles brothers, who retained stock in the company. In 1894, the company employed 50 hands, had 18 machines and had 25 patterns of desks made from walnut, white oak and cherry woods. Prices ranged from $13 to $55 a unit. Huntingburg Wagon Works In 1874, William Roettger and Ben Klosterman formed a partnership that later would become Huntingburg Wagon Works at 321 Fourth St., according to the Dubois County Museum. The company built a plant at Fifth and Washington streets in 1902 and eventually expanded its line of handmade wagons to include buggies and spring wagons as it acquired other companies. In 1925, the company began a car dealership in Hudson-Essex automobiles before the company was sold in 1958 and moved to Arkansas. But visitors to City Hall today
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF JOHN FIERST
Joesph Eckstein was born in Ripley County, Indiana, and came to Dubois County as a youngster. In 1889, in partnership with Ben Dupps and William Schuler, he purchased a steam thresher and sawmill, threshing farmers’ wheat during growing season and sawing lumber throughout the year. The partnership dissolved in 1889, with Eckstein taking over the sawmill portion of the business and moving it to the northeast side of Jasper. As the business grew and the years passed, Joseph’s sons, Clem and Louis, joined the company. Eventually, it became necessary to expand the facilities. In 1919, the Ecksteins decided to relocate the mill to property adjacent to the railroad track, west of Clay Street, near the river. The Eckstein Lumber Company remained in operation at this location for many decades. can glimpse the past as they are greeted by a 1901 Huntingburg Roadster buggy, the only one known to still exist. A 1920s pony cart and an early 1940s hitch wagon also are exhibited on City Hall’s second floor. The original wagon works building at 321 Fourth St. was sold in 1902 to Henry Dufendach, who opened a hardware store there. In the 1930s, Dufendach sold his hardware business to Reutepohler Hardware Co. Reutepohler enlarged the store and also sold
furniture, rugs and household supplies. Indiana Desk Many young men of the county became skilled in woodworking at the “desk factory” in the early years. To provide employment for the increasing number of skilled workers and apprentices, a second factory was organized on March 5, 1905, under the name of Jasper Novelty Works. This firm was financed by local capital, a consider-
Huntingburg Tobacco Huntingburg was on the Southern Railway Co. mainline from Louisville to St. Louis and one of the industries benefitting from that was tobacco. Herman Rothert had a four-story tobacco-handling warehouse at Fourth and Geiger streets where area farmers sold their crop and workers processed the tobacco. In the same year Huntingburg became a city, 1889, a large fire destroyed 17 buildings along Fourth and Geiger streets, including Rothert’s tobacco business. Hugo Songer, a Duff native, judge, area historian and author of “The History of Huntingburg,” said the tobacco industry never recovered from the fire. As for the railroad, the Huntingburg portion of the railway and the old train depot off Washington Street between State Road 64 and Fifth Street were finished in 1882. Huntingburg Dry Press Brick Early Huntingburg settlers recognized the value of clay deposits in a hill northwest of Huntingburg and kilns were erected for burning brick, according to Songer’s “History of Huntingburg.” Adolph Katterhenry was one of the first brick makers with a permanent facility a half mile north of Huntingburg. In 1892, Huntingburg’s Dry Press Brick Company was organized by W.R. McMahan, Mike McNelis, Adam Stratman, Henry Landgrebe and A.H. Koerner. The company made buff-colored face brick. Another firm, Southern Indiana Clay Products (later known as Patoka Brick Company), made