Later Developments of the Paper Industry

In the fifties, William Webster came to Middletown. He opened a store and advertised that he was a dealer in stoves, old iron, copper, brass, and all kinds of tinware. When he was not busy selling merchandise, he was busy trying to invent paper machinery. He was successful, and developed a small machine for manufacturing paper bags, which at that time were made by hand. His machine made the manufacture of paper bags much cheaper, and made possible a wider use for that product.

Since Middletown was noted for the manufacture of paper, this would be an ideal place for the making of paper bags. Being near the material needed, money could be saved, and bags manufactured more cheaply at this point. In 1873 R. E. Johnston established a paper bag factory in this town. Having no machinery, the bags were made with the Webster machine, and one person made seven hundred bags a day. Mr. Webster was a partner in this venture, but at the end of six months the firm was dissolved.

Webster bought part of an old tanning yard, and built a factory on the lot, where he began the manufacture of paper bags using his own patents--at one time he used seventy machines which he had built himself. To help him in his industry he employed seventy men, and manufactured a half million bags a week.

Johnston continued to manufacture bags using power machines, and he made 60,000,000 bags a year. Middletown had two paper bag companies, but in 1883 the Johnston plant was destroyed by fire, and he went out of business. In 1880 Webster retired from the industry.

The patent rights for the manufacture of satchel bottom bags were purchased by the Tytus Paper Company, which manufactured fine manila papers that were excellent for the making of paper bags. For a while the Ohio Bag Company prospered, but with the coming of the consolidation of industry, the company found it could not meet the keen competition of other larger companies, and so the company sold its patents, machinery was shipped away, and the skilled labor left.

E. L. McCallay, upon finding the vacant Ohio Bag plant, bought the buildings of the old company in 1899, refitted the factory with new and improved machinery, and began again the manufacture of paper bags in Middletown. The plant soon became very efficient and within a few months was manufacturing 1,250,000 paper bags a day. This company was called the Advance Paper Bag Company. By 1903 the company showed rapid growth; in that year it used 4,400,000 pounds of paper in making 235,000,000 bags. It used twenty-one bag machines instead of the original four. In 1904 the company spent $20,000 in wages for fifty persons. The capitalization that year was raised from $50,000 to $200,000 and the company was doubled in size, using forty machines to make 475,000,000 bags a year.

Paper from the Middletown mills had been used by the Raymond Bag Company of Cincinnati. In order to cut down the costs of transportation, this mill was moved to Middletown, but after the death of the owner of the mill, the plant was not too successful. During the nineties the mill was purchased by James Lawrence, the superintendent of the Wardlow-Thomas plant. Using old ropes as a base, Wardlow-Thomas manufactured flour sacking paper. The new Raymond Bag Company became a competitor of the Wardlow-Thomas company. Finally the company built a new plant northeast of Middletown.

As the use of paper bags increased, the demand became greater, so Lawrence organized another bag company. At first he could not find a suitable location in Middletown, so he began a factory at Miamisburg,but in a few years he moved the Lawrence Bag Company back to Middletown.

In the meantime another paper company had moved to Middletown. In 1892 with a capital stock of $25,000 Mr. Robbins began the manufacture here of specialty papers--English cloth blotting, die cut cards, and cabinet manila. The company increased its production from 1,500,000 pounds of paper in 1900 to 5,500,000 pounds in 1904. Middletown became known as the "Paper City." In 1880 a visitor to the town wrote:

In 1880 the paper industry of Middletown employed 440 hands, and put over 12,000,000 pounds of first class paper on the market. In 1887 Henry Howe said this about Middletown:

In 1904 the paper mills had a yearly output of 50,000,000 pounds of paper. The industry used 85,000,000 pounds of raw material and consumed 65,000 tons of coal. Over $200,000 was paid to employees in wages.

Many supplementary industries developed around the paper mills of Middletown. Paper bag companies, and specialty paper manufacturing developed due to the proximity to needed materials. Paper box companies were later established. In order to make and repair paper mill machinery new companies were organized for this work.

The first large machine shop to be organized was that of La Tourrette and Company who started with an iron and brass foundry. The company specialized in the manufacture of paper and tobacco machinery, both of which had a market in this area.

Peter La Tourrette came to Ohio in 1838. His great uncle Daniel La Tourrette had served in the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. His father had been a major in the War of 1812. Peter, who was born in 1817, came from New Jersey to Ohio. He began as a blacksmith, and in 1873 he formed a partnership with John Harrison, and they leased the Middletown Agricultural Works, which La Tourrette converted into a pump factory, and later they began the making of paper mill and tobacco machinery.

Since the growth of the company was so rapid it soon consisted of brass works, repair shops, and a general foundry. The Middletown Pump and Box Company was absorbed by this organization, and the pump work was taken over by La Tourrette’s shop, and the other company devoted its time to the manufacture of tobacco boxes.

P. P. La Tourrette, C. F. Gunckel, and F. B. Searage directed the machine shop which employed thirty men in 1880.

The Miami Valley became a center of the cigar-filler tobacco growing industry. The growing of tobacco gradually spread westward from Virginia, and as early as 1839 Ohio ranked seventh in the production of this crop, by 1889 it was third, but in 1919 Ohio was sixth. In 1889 this state produced 38,000,000 pounds of tobacco, but in 1919 it produced only 64,000,000 pounds.

In 1838 Seedleaf tobacco was introduced in this region and in 1851 its production was begun in the Dick’s Creek valley four of five miles south of Middletown. Since the Miami Valley had heavy clay soils, this particular variety of tobacco, an excellent cigar filler, became one of the main varieties of tobacco grown. The Spanish Zimmer variety introduced in 1869 became a popular tobacco for the upland country, while the Seedleaf was more adapted to lowland cultivation.

During the years 1839 to 1909 this region increased its annual yield of tobacco. During the World War, men turned to smoking cigarettes, and the demand for cigars, and thus for the kind of tobacco produced here, declined. Geographically this valley is not suited to the growth of other varieties of tobacco.

When the Miami Valley became the center of tobacco culture, this geographical change led to the establishment of tobacco processing plants at Middletown.

In 1839 Samuel Weigle was Middletown’s "tobacconist." He carried a complete line of tobaccos, and rolled some "common Segars." On his shelves he kept chewing tobacco of every kind, including Sweet Cavendish and Virginia Twist. He kept on had snuff and cut and dry tobacco.

John G. Clark and J. B. Cecil entered into the manufacture of tobacco in 1859, but due to the upheaval of the Civil War and the depression in industry, the business failed.

In 1844 John Auer, a tobacco roller in Cincinnati, met Paul J. Sorg, a foreman in a foundry. Mr. Auer could make tobacco, but he couldn’t keep books, and while Paul Sorg knew nothing about the manufacture of tobacco, he could keep books, for he had learned bookkeeping at a night school in Cincinnati. These two men organized a firm for the manufacture of tobacco, starting in Cincinnati with a capitalization of $6,000 and twenty-eight workers. In 1869 the firm was consolidated with the firm of Wilson and Jacoby, who owned a factory in Cincinnati, but who resided in Middletown. This new firm organized as Wilson, Sorg and Company moved to Middletown and began the construction of a tobacco factory here. The factory represented an investment of $20,000, and had a daily capacity of 1,000 pounds of tobacco. A three story brick building was erected. In 1870 Mr. Jacoby sold his interest in the company. In 1878, when Sorg and Auer disposed of their business to Wilson and McCalley, the business was worth $100,000.

Sorg and Auer began their own business. The first building they constructed was forty by one hundred and forty feet, and in it they put improved machinery with a total investment of $60,000. Four thousand pounds of tobacco was processed by one hundred and fifty men. When Auer retired from the firm in 1884, the number of employees of the firm had doubled, the capacity of the mill had been increased to 10,000 pounds daily, and the capital to $350,000. Each year had brought new additions. The factory’s product, plug tobacco, had a world wide reputation.

In the eighties Middletown became the third city in the United States in the output of plug tobacco.

In 1879 the P. J. Sorg building was one hundred and forty by one hundred feet; in 1880 and addition of fifty by one hundred feet was made to the plant; in 1881 another addition of fifty by one hundred forty feet came, and from then on the plant grew each year during this decade.

In 1881 the Wilson-McCallay plant was housed in one hundred forty by one hundred forty-four foot three story brick building and had a capacity of 3,000,000 pounds yearly; when this plant began in 1870 it boasted a production of 200,000 pounds yearly. In the early eighties it employed around four hundred men. By 1900 this firm was manufacturing 8,000,000 pounds of tobacco each year to the value of $2,500,000. The company then employed five hundred skilled laborers.

In 1898 the Continental Tobacco Company was looking forward to expansion; they entered into negotiations with P. J. Sorg and bought his plant, which became a part of this large tobacco corporation. In 1901 the company obtained the Wilson-McCallay factory, and in the same year a Cincinnati tobacco firm, which manufactured the "Polar Bear" brand, leased part of the P. J. Sorg building and moved there. In 1902 the Wilson-McCallay plant was abandoned and the business moved to the Sorg plant; now the whole plug tobacco business of Middletown was in one building with G. H. Shafor as resident manager.

In 1900 the American Cigar Company came to Middletown, and built a branch leaf house. A few years later the firm leased the old Wilson-McCallay plant and used it for a warehouse.

In the early eighties, the Cullman brothers, which had its national headquarters in New York, established one of its large warehouses here; it had eighteen such houses throughout the nation. Its largest warehouse was located at Middletown; this warehouse had a capacity of 30,000 cases and handled the produce grown in the Ohio region. Since 1884 Colonel Isaac Hale had operated the business, which began in a small shed, but which in 1900 employed three hundred persons and paid $75,000 in wages each year. The company handled only cigar leaf tobacco; the tobacco bought here was used as cigar filler. Mr. Hale purchased practically the whole crop of Zimmer Spanish which was grown in the Ohio tobacco area.

In 1903 the tobacco business of Middletown employed 1,000 men, paid over $9,000 in wages each week, and shipped annually 17,000,000 pounds of manufactured tobacco. Cullum Brothers and the American Cigar Company bought 14,500,000 pounds of cigar leaf in 1903 at the cost of $1,500,000, employed 550 persons, and paid $3,500 in weekly wages.

When the period of consolidation of industry began in the decade of 1880-1890, it was little thought that this movement would profoundly affect Middletown Industries. The first local industry to feel the octopus of the trusts was the twine factory, which the owners were forced to sell, and the machinery was shipped away. Another large corporation obtained control of the paper bag industry, and the other plant had to close.

But the industry most affected was the tobacco industry. While the other industries meant the work of many men, the tobacco industry was one of the largest in the city. Chief Justice White of the Supreme Court said:

In 1898 P. J. Sorg sold out his interest rather than lose his investment. Since the plant was well located geographically for raw material and access to the national market, and since many of its brands were so popular with the public, and because the plant and its machinery were in good condition it was decided by the trust to continue operation of the plant. In a few years however production was cut, and the working force reduced.

Paul Sorg, from the time of his coming to Middletown in 1870 until his death in 1908, was a leading citizen. He did more for the industrial development of Middletown than any other man of this period. He came to the town with a few hundred dollars, and left an estate valued at more than five million dollars. He won the respect of the citizens of the community and in 1892 was sent to Congress.

He was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, on September 23, 1840. Henry Sorg, a German immigrant, was his father. In 1851 the family moved from West Virginia to Cincinnati. The family was so poor that Paul Sorg, as a boy, sold flowers in the market place of Cincinnati and turned the money over to his mother to spend in support of the home. Being ambitious, the boy attended night school and received a business education. Later he formed a partnership and came to Middletown to begin the tobacco industry.

Through the work of this industrialist several companies were organized in Middletown, among which were the Sorg Tobacco Company, the P. A. Sorg Paper Company, the McSherry Manufacturing Company, the Miami Cycle Manufacturing Company. He was also responsible for the U. S. Hotel, the Middletown Gas Company, and the Sorg Opera House. Since the paper company and the tobacco organization have been described in connection with those industries, the other companies are discussed in this section.

The McSherry Manufacturing Company, no longer in existence, was a manufacturer of grain drills. When the company could find no room for expansion in Dayton, it decided to build a new plant at Middletown. The company was recognized all over the United States; in 1898 at the Trans-Mississippi exposition in Omaha it received the highest award for machines of its class.

In the early days of Middletown, carriages had been built in small shops by excellent craftsmen, but in 1857 William Ling and a Mr. Levoy formed a partnership called the Ling and Levoy Carriage Company, which was the first Miami Valley organization to build light vehicles for the wholesale trade. Through the manufacture of cheap buggies, the company brought about a revolution in the vehicle trade. In early manufacture, a buggy was a product of the skilled laborer, who, using no machinery, fashioned each part by hand, and made vehicles which were heavy and clumsy, but strong and durable. But one of these buggies fashioned by hand cost from $150 to $350.

Ling and Levoy introduced the use of machinery and the division of labor in the making of fine carriages which sold for around $150.

With the retirement of Mr. Levoy, D. H. Van Sickle came into the business; it became known as the Ling and Van Sickle Carriage Company, which continued as a partnership until 1899, when it was incorporated. The following men were the officers of the new firm: William Ling, D. H. VanSickle, C. B. Oglesby, A. J. Moon, and T. F. Carroll. In 1901 the company’s plant was enlarged so that 3,500 buggies, carriages and surreys and other kinds of vehicles could be manufactured. These were sold in all parts of the United States. A rubber tire plant was added so that rubber tires could be put on carriages used in the cities.

In 1879 the company used a building one hundred and forty by one hundred feet, employed fifty men and two salesmen. Although the company manufactured 1,200 buggies a year, it also manufactured platform beds and spring beds.

On July 26, 1895, the Miami Cycle and Manufacturing Company was organized with Frank Ray, C. B. Oglesby, Thomas Hetzler, C. H. Shafor, P. J. Sorg and H. Halburg as its directors. The new plant was equipped with the best machinery, much of which was electronically driven. In 1895 only 1,500 machines were marketed.

The bicycle made by this company was called a Racycle, which ran twenty-seven per cent easier than other bicycles because of a new invention. In 1895 the company manufactured 3500, but by 1901 the output reached the total of 14,000.

In 1886 Charles Shartle started a small machine shop to do general repair work. The main business of the company was soon concerned with the manufacture of the Miami gasoline engine. Among the sixty men employed were skilled mechanics. An engine a day was the output of this company.

When the Decatur Buggy Company removed here from Indiana, Middletown’s carriage trade was increased. In 1900 the company made 10,000 vehicles, and it planned to double its production. The famous Western Buggy and the Columbia Rubber Tire buggy were its most popular models. This firm composed of Harry Elwood and Harry Quakenbush, was brought here by the Industrial Commission.

Another industry based upon agriculture was the Hartley and Shephard firm which manufactured malt. During its peak production it used 100,000 bushels of grain a year, and sold its product throughout Ohio.

In the decade from 1880 to 1890 the Harvester Company made twine to bind wheat.

The Interstate Folding Box Company was organized in 1912 with a capital of $10,000. In spite of great flood damage and a fire which destroyed the plant, the organization obtained credit, rebuilt the plant, and in 1918 did an annual business of $350,000

All kinds of switches are manufactured by the Harkelew Electric Company, which was organized in 1904 with a capital of $15,000.

The Shartle Brothers Machine Company, which specialized in the manufacture of paper mill machinery began operation in 1912.

Other companies which were organized in Middletown during the early twentieth century and which have since gone out of business included: The Nashua Gummed and Coated Paper Company; C. C. Fouts Company, which manufactured tanks and grain bins; O. K. Paper Pail Company, noted for paper pails for ice creams, oysters, etc.: and the Waite Clock and Manufacturing Company.

William Smith who headed the firm of Smith and Company was the pioneer contractor in the town. He began his work in 1877; his first big contract was the St. Paul’s Church. In 1880 he formed a partnership with R. H. Wilson and together they built a brick yard. This company built the Lutheran Church, Boyer and Juff Building, Masonic Temple, Excello Paper Mills, Sorg Factory, Wilson-McCallay addition, and the Hill paper mills. In 1877 the partnership was dissolved, but Mr. Smith continued his work by building the Oglesby mill, the Tytus Gardner mill, Sorg’s factory addition, the Middletown Machine Works, the Sabin Robbin’s plant, the Sorg Opera House, the Presbyterian Church, Sebald’s Cold Storage House, the North School, and the first building for the American Rolling Mill.

George Jacoby and William Caldwell began a small lumber yard in Middletown in 1859. Later the company came under the management of Caldwell and Iseminger, doing all kinds of mill work, particularly the manufacturing of tobacco boxes. In 1900 the firm employed one hundred and fifty men.

The largest industry in Middletown is the American Rolling Mill Company. This company began in Cincinnati as the Sagendorph Iron Roofing and Corrugating Company in the year of 1883. Although the business began as a small unit, its sheet metal products became well known, and in 1891 the company changed its name to the American Steel Roofing Company. In 1889 George M. Verity became manager of this Cincinnati firm, which manufactured corrugated iron, iron and steel roofing, metal lath, caves troughs, and sheet metal specialties. On December 2, 1899 the American Rolling Mill Company was organized with a capital of $200,000 which was increased to $500,000 when plans were made for the improvement of the company.

In the fall of 1899 the people of Middletown decided to spend $100,000 to bring new industries to the town. Captain Robert Wilson, E. H. McKnight, and Jacob Shaffer, were placed on the commission to raise the funds and to obtain the new industries. The people decided that they wanted a steel plant; negotiations were begun with George M. Verity and Mr. Taylor of Cincinnati. It was agreed that the American Rolling Mill Company would move to Middletown.

On July 12, 1900 the cornerstone for the new plant was laid. At that time the Daily Signal declared:

To begin an independent steel company in those days took courage, for the United States Steel Corporation had begun its program for the consolidation of many independent rolling mill units into one organization.

The new plant began operations in March 1901. Before this time, the iron and steel business had been very specialized--one company bought sheet iron, bars, or billets, and manufactured them into sheet iron or steel, while galvanized and corrugated iron were made by separate companies. The American Rolling Mill, popularly referred to as Armco, was the first to bring all these scattered branches of the steel industry into one plant. Only the blast furnace was not consolidated with the operations. One man wrote:

At the end of the first year of operations the sales totaled $281,181. The company began with the installation of one twenty-five ton open hearth furnace, but by 1906 it had two fifty-ton open hearth furnaces. At the close of five years of operation the company’s annual sales had climbed to over a million dollars, and over seven hundred men were on the company’s payroll.

Since the company had a surplus of steel from the open hearth department, and since there was a demand for more finished steel products than the company could produce, the directors decided to purchase the Muskingum Valley Steel Company at Zanesville, Ohio, which doubled the tonnage of finished sheets.

In 1911 Armco had an annual sales of $3,600,000, employed fifteen hundred men, and produced 4500 tons a month of galvanized and black sheets, compared with 900 tons a month in 1901.

By 1909 the company had used every foot of available land at the Central Works, and a new plant was needed. Many cities tried to induce the company to build a new plant in their city, but Middletown wanted the new plant. Verity said that if Middletown would promise to make certain improvements that he would do all he could to get the directors to build the new plant at Middletown.

In 1911 the new East Side Works began operations. The new unit contained four 75-ton open hearth furnaces, soaking pits for the re-heating of ingots that had come from the open hearth department, a forty-inch blooming mill to convert the large ingots into slabs, a bar mill to make sheet bars, a central power station, maintenance shops, a sheet and jobbing mill department, and a finishing department, which could take blacksteel sheets and finish them as alloy coated sheets, galvanized sheets, or highly polished sheets.

In 1916 and 1917 the company inaugurated a large construction program resulting in the great increase in production. In 1916 the company employed 4500 men and sold $13,262,835 worth of steel products. During the war a forge shop was built so that shell forgings, crank shafts, and miscellaneous forgings could be made.

When the price of pig iron was increased in 1917, the company decided to obtain its own supply. Since Armco had been buying much of its pig iron from the Columbus Iron and Steel Company, a committee brought about the merger of the two companies. The Columbus Iron and Steel Company obtained its ore from the Lake Superior district, which was carried on its own steamers on the Great Lakes, while its coal came from the company’s mines in West Virginia, and coke from ovens at Portsmouth which the company controlled. The limestone came from a quarry near the plant. The blast furnace at Columbus produced 200,00 tons of pig iron a year.

In 1921 the Armco corporation purchased the Ashland Iron and Mining Company at Ashland, Kentucky. The factory had two blast furnaces, six open hearth furnaces, a blooming mill and five sheet mills. It was here that the continuous sheet mill was introduced.

The American Rolling Mill Company inaugurated another expansion program in 1927; in that year it purchased the Columbia Steel Company of Butler, Pennsylvania; the Forged Steel Wheel Company of Elyria, Ohio; and an interest in the Hamilton Coke and Iron Company at Hamilton, Ohio. In 1930 the properties of the Sheffield Steel Corporation were acquired; in 1935 the Calco Iron Pipe Company of West Berkeley, California became part of the corporations’ holdings.

Research has always played an important part at Armco, and its metallurgists and engineers have made four outstanding contributions to the iron and steel industry.

The development of a special electrical steel was its first contribution. Since Armco was the organization to pioneer in this field, careful investigation and testing had to be made before putting the product on the market. In 1903 Armco shipped the first carload of electrical sheets, which were made for special purposes, being made from steel low in phosphorus, carbon, and sulphur.

When Armco metallurgists read in a government bulletin, that farmers needed rust-resisting fence wire, they decided to produce a steel that would not rust so easily. Using a high grade raw materials and eliminating as much manganese and carbon as possible, the company succeeded in making an almost pure iron, which could be galvanized. This "Ingot Iron", which was 99 per cent pure came into use in 1907. Armco "Ingot Iron" could also be enameled, and it became the world’s standard enameling iron. Its rust-resisting qualities made it ideal for culverts and underground use of all kinds, and for wire products. Due to its electric conductivity and magnetic property, it is used in telegraph and telephone equipment.

In 1910 the Armco research department began to experiment with making sheets for auto bodies, and this resulted in the development of sheets which met the exacting requirements of automobile manufacturers.

The invention of the continuous steel mill for rolling iron and steel was the greatest accomplishment of the Armco organization. This method, first used at the Ashland plant, was later introduced at the Middletown mill.

This continuous method is described as follow:

In 1911 Armco began to spread its fame all over the world. Culverts of ingot iron are soon demanded in South America. Through Armco International Corporation, Armco products are now sold in all parts of the world.