The evening Argus. [volume] (Rock Island, Ill.) 1861-1871, 1870-01-22
THE INDUSTRIAL INTERESTS OF ROCK
ISLAND

There should in the economy ofevery city
town or village, be some sort of industrial
element to draw in and employ the laboring
class, or said town or city relapses into such
classic village as Mr.. Nasty describes Con.
ferate X Roads to be, iaziness, squalor and
consuming poverty Rock Island, which has
a star of destiny leading her to tho van of
the river cities ofthe Mississippi valley. has
such an industrial element. Meriden, Con
necticut, makes Brittsnia ware. Waterbury
| in the same State, buttons and pins, and
Norwich has India rubber shoe and fish hook
factories. Rock Island places her industrial
dependency on plows, and for the s'so,hty
of that branch of industry, puts unlimited
.-ns, in the national reputation which Blu
f,rd,s n,ows have already made for them
.s,ves. and the rapid growth of Buford's pillow
works as a monster factory of the west To
understand the important industrial end
they subserve in this community in keeping
men employed at lucrative wages, the fol
lowing facts and figures should be taken in
to consideration. Bufords pillow works as
altered and enlarged, consist of FIVE princi-
pal departments. First, the foundry located
on natural bed of black sand
requires twelve experienced men to work
castings. The iron shop wherein the steel
is hardened and the mould board made re
quires 60 men. The wood department where
the pow is fitted up and finished employs
25 experienced hands. The paint shop and
polishing room, 20 and IL men, respectively
altogether 20 men, who by the aid of machin.
cry made especiallyfo for these works, and con
sisting Of the latest and most improved inven-
tons in pillow making apparatus, can do as
much as 1000 men could by mere handi
work. Not withstanding this the Me.srs Blu
ford are behind their orders. In the celebra
led "Black Hawk Walking Culsivator, which
is having an unparalleled run for so new
machine, they have five thousand ordered
ahead, and the branch Of the works devoted
to the manufacture of these is running to its
full capacity to supply the demand. In this
work each man has one part of the machine
to work on: no man, except, perhaps. Mr..
Underwood, the inventor, ever having made
an entire machine. This division of labor
done BY machinery, makes the cost not more
than one tenth what i, would be
to make it all By hand,
difference which the consumer gets
the benefit OF. So, at all times, says their
irrepressible agent, John Davis, who looks
after Mercer Co. The Importance of such
an institution in our community cannot be
easily estimated. Each one of these EN-.
ployes receives liberal wages, which with
ordinary economy enables him in time to
purchase lot and erect a rooftree of hi.
own, and become respectable household
ing citizen. All over the lower end of
town are these little cottage. going up, and
that most important of all elements in a
community, the operative quarter is being
built up. There is room for an in6nitude
of manufactures here in Rock Island, and
every establishment engaged in the manu-
| facture of al article in general and coutiuu
Gus demand, as are Buford's Flows and the
Blsckhawk Cultivator, adds so much to our
wealth. and the number of our respectable
laboring community a sort of residen,
population which always gives city the
stability and strength of bone and muscle
In fact our increased and increasing railroad
connections east and west, north and south.
and to all intermediate points of the com.
pass give 10 Rock Island such disseminat
ing facilities as should draw manufactures of
all sorts to our midst, and with the item OF
cheap coal make this beyond doub, the best
manufacturing point in the West.