The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-04-27
COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES
GO TOGETHER.

Wichita the Commercial Metropolis ant
the Manufacturing City Of Kansas.
The EAGLE has, of late, illustrated anC
written up a number Of manufacturing
concerns of this city, fifteen or twenty
In all, which work has gone far in con
vincing the people of this and Of Other
states of the present importance Of
Wichita as a manufacturing center.
While some of these institutions have
been very important, there are many
lust as important which have not yet
been alluded to. This morning we have
the pleasure Of laying before our readers
one of the largest and most important
manufacturing concerns in the west,
the extensive works of the Burton Stock
Car company.
The state commissioner of industrial
statistics for Kansas, the Hon. Frank H.
Betton, in his fifth annual report, which
has Just been issued, gives Wichita sew
enty-nine manufacturing and industrial
establishments and institutions as re-
turned to him. This is a greater number
of manufactures than is returned by
any city in Kansas. The commissioner,
however. states that he is satisfied from
his own personal knowledge, and from
other sources, that a large number of
Wichita concerns made no report or re-
turns. In this conclusion we know that
he is correct. Instead of seventy-nine
Wichita has one hundred and fourteen,
as shown by her own local records.
Commissioner Betton, having no
means at his disposal to pay
for the compilation of the data
of the various industries represented in
this city, simply tabulated the returns
voluntarily made up, on the blanks sent
out. These tables are very exhaustive
and instructive but too complex for
newspaper columns, However, they
show some totals which speak volumes
for the great strides being made in the
line of manufactures by the commercial
metropolis of Kansas, to some of which
we desire to allude for the better infor-
NATION of not only a great many of our
own people, but in connection with the
great manufacturing plant found illus
trated on another page.
There is total capital employed in
manufactures in Wichita, as thus re-
turned, of four million, three hundred |
and sixty-eight thousand, five hundred |
and seventy-five (S4, 1868, 800 dollars. The
value of the total product returned by
these seventy-nine industries, foots |
up for eleven months of |
1889, three million, three hundred |
and seventy thousand, seven hundred |
and seventy-seven (S3,37O,7 IT'D dollars,
the total cost of the raw material en-
ployed being S1,971,O8 The amount
paid out for labor in these institutions
for eleven months being $62O,75O, or,
there was paid out for labor in Wichita |
factories, for last year, upwards Of two
thousands two hundred dollars day.
These factories and industries employed
1853 men, 1O5 women and sixty-one
youths and paid in taxes, rents and in
terest S31, FAC.
That two-thirds of the number of
Wichita's industries should have made
such a showing, while it may prove a
matter of surprise to some of her own
people and one of congratulation for
them all, 1t is a showing that but con-
firms the old axiom based on experience
that the greatest commercial cities
aro always the greatest manufacturing
cities. This does not seem true, but it
is true, as statistics abundantly prove.
Boston IS the greatest manufacturing
point in New England; the value of the
manufactured products of New York
City exceeds those of any other city in
the United States; Chicago is the great
est manufacturing city in the west, fol-
lowed next by st. Louis; and yet all of
these cities are primarily estimated as
purely commercial cities. And so they
are. But the very advantages which
render these cities great commercial cit
les. the very facilities which enable them
to reach and supply large territories with
commercial commodities, the very agen.
cies which sustain them as central mar
Rets, are Just the advantages, facilities
and agencies necessary TO the success. of
the manufacturer who must reach lust
the trade reached by the wholesaler and
the jobber. There are iron towns" and
"cotton towns" and "woolen towns"
where these staples are manufactured as
a speciality, because of local advantages.
and we have a Pittsburg with her glass
and gas, and a Minneapolis with her :
flour and mills, but the thousand and one !
manufactured things which enter into ,
every day life are manufactured at COM
mercial centers almost wholly. ;
And so it is evident that Wichita is
destined to become a great manufacture
ing center. As her jobbing interests ex- )
pand and reach out, commanding lower .
freight rates over all the territory tribu-
tary to her; as her grain market and live
stock market and packing interests keep ,
on increasing her tonnage and forcing g.,
down the competitive traffic charges, the