Untitled Document

THE SEARS INDUSTRIES

David B. Sears came to Moline, Rock Island county, in 1S36. He began building the Moline dam, from the mainland on the Illinois shore of the Mississippi to the island of Rock Island, in 1837, in company with John W. Spencer, Calvin Ainsworth and Spencer H. White. So far as we have been able to learn this was the first dam built on the Mississippi river. The first mill on this water power was built by David B. Sears in 1838, at the south end of the dam, about where Fifteenth street, Moline, now ends.

It had a sash saw in the lower story, a grist mill above, with two run of stones, and addition in which was located a carding mill for carding wool. At that time flour and meal were packed in barrels, and Mr. Sears had his own cooper shop where the barrels for the use of the mill were made. The roof of this mill, and the outside covering as well, were made of shakes. This mill sawed native timber, and in it was cut most of the lumber used in Rock Island county's first courthouse. When this courthouse was demolished it was found that all the lumber used in its construction was oak and walnut, except the cornice, which was of white pine brought from Pennsylvania down the Ohio, and up the Mississippi river.

Mr. Sears built his second saw mill in 1845 at the north end of the short dam. which he built from the upper end of the island of Rock Island to Benliam's Island in the main channel of the Mississippi. This second Sears mill was equipped with both a sash saw and a rotary saw. this being the first saw of this kind installed north of St. Louis. The mill cut both native timber and pine from Black river, Wis. The mill also had a planing and matching machine, one of the first to be used here, all such work having been previously done by hand tools.

This machine almost led to a strike, as George Vesie, Dan Corbin, William Ferris and other carpenters organized against its introduction, claiming that it would deprive them of their occupation. There was considerable excitement and hints of a possible fire. A meeting was called, which Mr. Sears attended, though uninvited, insisting on presenting the other side of the case, which he did so well that the objections were withdrawn and Rock Island county's first threatened strike was averted.

When John Deere was experimenting with his first steel plows, which later made him famous the world over, he used the worn out saw blades from the Sears mill from which to obtain his steel. David Sears, of Searstown, son of D. B. Sears, has a hoe made for him, when a small boy, by Mr. Deere's own hands. It is still in a good state of preservation and seems capable of a hundred years more of service. This mill helped cut the lumber for the first railroad bridge across the Mississippi river, which spanned the river from the island of Rock Island to Davenport.

It also cut the lumber for the draw pier of this first bridge, this pier being a timbered crib. The lumber was floated from the mill to the site of the bridge. This mill was the leading one in this locality and had a capacity to cut 6,000 feet of lumber in twelve hours. Some of the later mills could cut that much in fifteen or twenty minutes. David B. Sears, in company with George Stephens, Jonathan Hvmtoon and Timothy Woods, established the first large furniture factory in 1853, in the second story of the Sears mill at the north end of the Benham's Island dam, where they made furniture from the native hardwood lumber.

David Sears still has several pieces of furniture made in this factory, which are yet in prime condition. Hon. William Jackson, dean of the Rock Island county bar, worked at the bench in this factory with his law books open before him, thus laying the foundation of the legal education which has made him so prominent in his profession. There was also a flouring mill on Benham's Island in the early days.

The Spencer H. White saw mill was located at the island end of the original Moline dam. It contained a muley saw, a rotary saw and a lath mill. This mill cut the stock for the Dimock. Gould and Company woodenware factory which made tubs, buckets, etc., for the early settlers, and which was located just south of this mill on the Moline dam. Later it was moved to the shore of the mainland, where it was operated in connection with the Dimock. Gould and Company saw mill at the present site of the lumber yards of this firm in Moline, and became a large institution.

When the White mill was dismantled, at the time the Government took possession of the island, the water wheels and other machinery were bought by Holmes Hakes and William F. Gilmore and removed to the water power on Rock river as already mentioned.

The Chamberlain and Dean mill was located on the Moline water power dam a short distance from the Moline shore. It was built about 1850, had a sash saw only, and was finally destroyed by a fire, which was caused by the friction of the machinery. Hollister, Stevens and Ruggles built a saw mill where the Moline waterworks now stand, which J. S. Keator and Porter Skinner afterward owned. Later Mr. Keator became sole proprietor. Later still the mill burned, and was rebuilt into a modern mill, but ran only a short time owing to the scarcity of logs. Soon after it was dismantled and the machinery was shipped to the yellow pine district of the South, fate which befell a number of saw mills from this locality as the timber became less and less from constant cutting, finally disappearing as a commercial commodity.

Dimock, Gould and Company had a tub and bucket factory on the Moline dam, using stock cut for them by the Spencer H. White mill. In 1867 the Government ordered all private interests removed from the island of Rock Island, as it was to be used entirely for government purposes, so Dimock, Gould and Company moved their tub and bucket plant to the Moline mainland, near where their lumber yards are now located, built a saw mill of their own and began cutting lumber in 1868. In 1875 the saw mill was struck by lightning and burned. Later it was rebuilt on a larger scale than before. In 1890 the woodenware business was sold and removed.

While the great lumber manufacturing industry of this section was growing to its full stature and then declining to its utter extinction, other manufacturing interests were developing, first with steady persistence, then with more rapid strides, then with giant strides which have placed Rock Island county among the leading manufacturing counties of the state and, according to population, one of the greatest in the "United States.

This development has been confined principally to the cities of Rock Island. Moline and East Moline. Of these Moline may be called the manufacturing giant of the county, and East Moline the young giant or the little giant. Moline and East Moline are essentially manufacturing cities. In the two are located more than seventy manufacturing plants, not a few of which are the largest of their kind in the world. In them is invested a capital of over $80,000,000, and they employ an average of over 9,000 operatives (9,272 in 1912), the number reaching over 11,000 at times, and they paid to these in wages during the past year (1912) over $6,329,808, while their manufactured products for last year (1912) reached the total of over $37.168,500. This is an increase of $20,000.000. or 33 per cent, in capital, of 15 per cent in number of employes, of almost $400,000 in wages paid, and of 24 per cent in total product over the previous year (1911). In 1911 these factories expended almost $1,913.250 in extensions and improvements.

Yet with this large expenditure so recent, they totaled $930.900 in the same way during 1912. These various items of last year bid fair to be equaled, probably exceeded, when the balance sheet shall have been made up for 1913. The output too is widely varied, consisting of almost every kind of farm implement, gas and gasoline engines, heavy drop and forging machinery, wagons, carriages, steam engines, wood working ma chinery, flour mill machinery, pumps, malleable iron castings, steel billets, scales, harness and saddlery fittings, carriage and wagon wheels, paint, carriage bodies, automobiles, and many other specialized products.

These cities of Rock Island county, with their many, many blocks of factory buildings, and the busy hum of almost innumerable whirring wheels turning out six days in the week, month after month, year after year, their endless chain of aids to man in his labor of subduing the earth, and feeding and clothing mankind, carrying the names of these cities to the utter most ends of the earth, are not smoke begrimed, as one might suppose, but are clean and healthy, largely from the fact that almost all these manufacturing activities are carried on by the use of electric power generated by the great water power lying almost at their doors.

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