The Cortland
News, Friday, September 3, 1886.
Cortland’s Prominent Industry.
Everyone who has visited Cortland has always been
impressed with the wonderful beauty of its situation, five valleys with modest
hill tops on either side seem to have met to point out its location, and as you
traverse its streets and note the marked thrift of its inhabitants, the mammoth
proportions of its factories, and hear the busy hum of its industries, you say,
wise is the man, who taking natures' hint, has chosen this as his dwelling
place.
Every
dollar in the community seems to be engaged in active business, leaving no opening
for arrogant and unprofitable display. True, many inhabitants have means far
beyond their immediate wants, but this wealth is not locked up in bonds but has
sought business avenues which gives employment to hundreds of laborers who have
flocked here to lay the foundation of a home and competence in after life.
The
industry which to-day is entitled to the foremost rank in Cortland, judged by
the comparisons, is the Hitchcock Manufacturing Company. Not a decade ago it was
established by Mr. C. B. Hitchcock as an individual enterprise, when he built
but one hundred cutters and a few buggies. Each succeeding year saw this number
doubled and tripled until its hundreds became thousands and its thousands tens
of thousands as the number of its annual product. Three years ago Mr. Hitchcock,
recognizing the immense proportion to which the business was growing, organized
it into a stock company with the largest capital of any similar organization in
the state.
A
year and a half ago a new department, at a large outlay, was added by the purchase
of the Cortland foundry and machine shops, where are produced an almost endless
variety of iron and wood machines, and are also built some of the standard
agricultural implements, among which is the famed Victor mower that has no peer
in the hay field. This added enterprise since it has come under the company's management
has more than tripled its products and the next season promises to see it rival
the oldest established works.
The
cutter and buggy department of the Hitchcock Manufacturing Company is the largest
in the world. Its product this year will reach over 15,000 cutters and 3,000
wagons. Its capacity is a cutter every three minutes and a buggy every ten
minutes. This wonderful and rapid production of good is
not the result of magic, as might be supposed, but of a thorough and perfectly
organized system. Each employee has his own work and what he does one day sets
the task of his comrades the next, thus each man not only in a measure becomes
responsible for the amount and quality of work his successor turns out but also
to the continued employment of his fellow workmen.
It
has been the aim of the company to give to its men constant employment the year
round. In this it has been very successful, for during its entire existence [it]
has never shut down the works for a single month. It is thought that much is
gained by the company over others for the reason that good and reliable men
want constant and steady work.
A
glance at the books shows that it does an average of over $50,000 a month or
more than a half million dollars a year. This gives employment to between four and
five hundred men in all the departments.
The
new brick factory now building, which is 425 feet long by 50 feet wide and five
stories high, will be, when completed, the largest single building in the United
States used for wagon purposes, and this, together with the store house built
in the spring, 280 feet long by 50 feet wide with three floors, will make it by
a number of acres the largest wagon factory in state.
Mr.
C. B. Hitchcock, the president, has the general supervision and management of
the company. In this he is assisted by Mr. H. L. Gleason, the secretary, who
gives the business his individual personal attention. The fact that Mr. Gleason
practiced law for a few years prior to his connection with the firm has been an
advantage to the company. Mr. J. W. Kuse came from Minneapolis to fill the
place of treasurer. Mr. J. C. Sager and F. B. Hitchcock are the superintendents
of departments, assisted by able foremen. By each of these gentlemen I was
shown the greatest of courtesy and left them with impression that the Hitchcock
Manufacturing company would extend its enterprise as much in the future as in
the past, and that Cortland has reason to be proud of having such an
institution in her midst.—From Elmira N. Y. Daily Gazette and Free
Press.
Reference:
1) Hitchcock
Manufacturing Company:
2) Past and
Present by D. Morris Kurtz, 1883: http://www.usgenweb.info/nycortland/books/pandp-2.htm
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