SPRINGFIELD, MISSOURI AND SURROUNDINGS • 1889


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(previous page) ground, extensive brick buildings, sheds and yards, and a fine mechanical equipment, is $100,000. The company employs 75 to 100 hands in the manufacture of farm, log and transfer wagons, of which upwards of 2,000 are annually turned out and sold in car lots to dealers in California, Texas, Kansas, Southwest Missouri, and the Indian Territory. The business of the company is handled with great discretion, only the most perfect materials being allowed to go into the make-up of vehicles. It has an enviable reputation for first-class work, and is steadily increasing its output, in response to a popular and growing demand.

The officers of the company are Col. Homer F. Fellows, president; N. W. Fellows, vice-president; F. L. Wishart, secretary; and E. B. Hayden, treasurer. They are all strong men in their several departments, and Col. Fellows, who is one of the most enterprising and sagacious business men in the city, assures the writer that Springfield is an exceptionally fine location for this industry, on account of its central and healthful location, excellent railway facilities, cheap living, and the abundance of superior wagon timber and cheap coals in the surrounding country, and knows no reason why it may not successfully manufacture wagons and carriages on a grand scale, like Columbus, Cincinnati and South Bend. The value of the yearly output of the company in wagons, wagon wood stock, and kindred merchandise, is about $140,000.

Col. Fellows is largely interested in outside enterprises, among which I am pleased to mention the recent establishment by himself and associates of a valuable plant in the city of Leon, Mexico, where they employ upwards of 100 men in the manufacture of fine carriages and furniture for the Mexican trade. It will be a matter of agreeable surprise to many Americans too, to know that the work of these enterprising gentlemen is so well appreciated by the good people of our sister republic that it is not a question with them of cultivating and building up a market for their goods, but rather one of enlarging their facilities to meet an appreciative and rapidly growing demand. The assurance from Col. Fellows that his enterprise is warmly encouraged by all classes, and that men of rank and influence in the republic, like Ex-President Gonzales and many others, whose names and progressive views are not unknown to our people, are giving unqualified and hearty encouragement to all worthy American industries and investments, and that the feeling of these gentlemen find happy expression in the ample protection which the state and general governments give to every legitimate American enterprise, will be hailed with pleasure by many and many a reader of this Hand-Book whose heart turns with anxious longing to the warm skies and magnificent resources of that beautiful and inviting land.

The four PLANNING MILLS, which involve active capital and plants aggregating a value of $135,000, employ 180 men, do an annual business of $340,000, and are a capita commentary on the thrift and material progress of the city, with whose building enterprises they are more immediately concerned than any other industry. THE SPRINGFIELD PLANING MILL & LUMBER CO., composed of R. E. Everest and R. A. Anderson, alone does a yearly retail and jobbing business of $225,000, which represents a 300 per cent. (next page)


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