Kansas City journal. [volume] (Kansas City, Mo.) 1897-1928, 1899-06-04
What 1t Means.

: y
people so long as scarcely to bear repeti-
tion. 1t will be incalculable. One busi-
ness man of the city. in talking to i re-
porter for The Journal. said:
Il have made careful compilation of
figures upon the tanning proposition and
will say that if all the hides of all kinds
taken of by the packing houses in KAN
saS City were tanned here and worked up
by industries which naturally follow the
tanning business. it would bring men.
women and children sufficient. with the
non-working members of the families To
add $1,000 population TO the city"
A prominent member OF the Commercial
Club, a real estate dealer. said: 81 have
looked into the matter sufficiently to learn
that sixteen different industries. all OF
which / do not now remember. naturally
90 with a tannery and Will ultimately come
here if once the tannerieS get going
An officer of the Manufacturers Associa-
ton, speaking Of the Martin proposition.
and the almost positive certainty that a big
tannery would be the result, said: 81
consider the securing of this tannery big
ger thing even than the coming of Cud-
ahy's packing plant, for the reason that II
opens a new line of industry: something
which, with associated enterprises. can be
made TO more than equal the great pack
ing interests of this city
a member of a packing firm said: The
tannery will help the packing business of
the the f hides faken e get 3 IN tb c5% f% ta da6 be be
sold right here it Will enable a little bet
ter price TO be paid for the stock and will
help draw more live stock to the market,
making II a larger and better market than
ever"
one man somewhat interested in the new
project said: If this process is a success,
and can do the tanning without the
great expense of tanbark, / see no reason
why the business viii not be wonderfully
successful. At present most of the hides
taken off in Kansas City are tanned in
the East The freight rate on hides TO the
East by the carload is based on the New
York rate, which is 4Sl2 cents per i0l. The
rate back on leather is 60 per 100 by the
fun carload. and not more than one or two
firms in Kansas City buy leather in such
large quantities. Just the saving in freight
alone would seem pretty good margin
upon which to operate. There are no big
tanneries in this country west of St Louis
and l believe our tannery, and Good
many others in Kansas City. could easily
sell all the leather they could possibly pro-
duce."
Many other business men seen by the re-
porter were overjoyed to feel that at last
Kansas City had a tannery started with
every prospect of pushing right ahead
They said that If successful other tan
neries would be established and many 9TH
er industries First of all, tanneries would
draw shoe factories, harness factories,
buggy top factories, betting factories, col
lar factories. trunk factories, travelling bag
factories and other factories s,I using the va
rious forms of leather Then. growing
out of tanneries, are glue factories, which
use the fieshings: mattress factories, felt
factories, which use the hair: horse blan-
ket and carpet factories, which use the
hair mixed with wool. Logging factories,
moccasin factories, hat factories and felt
use felt. and many others.
There is room for a big tanning industry
here. Last year the packing houses took
off $50 1874 beef hides. not to mention calf
and sheep hides. With the completion of
the great enlargement of the SchwarZ-
schild & SulZberger's 5 beef killing plant and
the building of the Cudahy plant. there
will probably be slaughtered 100000 cattle
in this city annually, with proportionate
number of other animals, giving oppor
tunity, If seized upon, for Kansas City TO
be the greatest leather market of the world
as well as the greatest cattle market and
packing center. All of this may come as
result of the first hides tanned in Kansas
City. A work which will be finished to-
morrow morning.
How 1t Was Done.
The story of how Kansas City got its
first tannery is brief, but not .uninterest-
ing.
For six or eight years there has lived in
the little town of Bowling Green Mo, a
Danish tanner, Peter Martin by name.
Martin was a man who had not picked up
the tanning business incidentally, or as Il
side issue. 1t was bred in him. He had
worked in tanneries since he was child
Constant working over the fieshing bench
es, STOPPING over the watts and handling the
heavy hides had bowed his back, making
him permanently bent and stopped. His
great-great- grandfather before him was a
tanner, so was his grandfather, and when
a child, Peter Martins first experience
with the tanning business was in the little
hagen.
Though toiIing at the tanning business
early and late, year in and year out, from
childhood. Peter Martin was not a mere
drudge. He was a thinker, a reader, an
Observation-Disclosures looking for something
TO hasten the time and lessen the expense
twenty years ago. while working in a tam
merry in St Louis. he heard talk of the
difficulty of tanning leather which would
of value in the valves of iron
pumps. All the leather tried was quickly
made valueless by the chemical action of
the corrosion of the iron rust. Martin
went TO thinking over the problem. and
soon evolved method of producing
leather which did away with the trouble,
and the leather found a ready sale among
the pump manufacturers.
But Martin wanted to get where he could
secure "A home of his own for his family
About eight years ago he moved to Bowl
ing Green. Mo, and here at his home nut
up a small tanning plant. All the work
was done by hand with crude utensils
re mad but little money, and could only
buy few poor hides at a time from local
butchers. These he would put into his
watts; make into leather and then make
up the leather in:o halters and straps for
Ieather 10 De used IN lacing for belts
When he had sold his halters and straps
,1,z ana iacing he would take what money
buy few more hides and repeat the on.
Grafton.
Leather Is Very Strong.
1t wasn't long until the fame of Mar
tins leather spread about that section Of
that country. 1t had some peculiarities
II was tremendously strong 1t was diff
cult 10 cut string of il so small that a
strong man could break il. even with the
eAeruon of all his strength The leather
was p!lahie. Exposure to water or wealth
Sr mad no effect upon it. 1t never rot
hard. Stin or brittle. Rats and mice would
mot nibble it, and ii seemed to have many
other good qualities not found i'm ,tbar
feathers. i' ''itei
1t was noticed too that there were some
nCcuharitlcs about the little tannery itself
There wasn't any tanbarl6 around il 4
hatGh OF hides which went into process oF
tanning came Out in finished leather in
from fiteen 1" thirty days instead of the
slN months usual at other tanneries AIy
Martin said too. that the material which
he used was SO much less expensive Than
thnhdrk or tauu!C extract made from arlS
1ldt ms process. besides being much quick
er. actually cost about 81 less Der hide tban
me methods usually employed in tanneries
But what his process was he would nor
say. II was his secret, a process he had
formed after years of careful study in
years. >
But Mr.. Martin was an honest man. an
industrious man, good citizen who stood
well in the community and the villagers
believed he had a good thing which ought
TO be pushed. They organized a stock com.
pany of 5000 capital put all of the money
into plant and salaries and left Mr.. Martin
no more money upon which to operate than
he had before the company was formed
OF course a company managed in that wav
was not a business success and after two
or three years Of effort the plant was prac-
tically closed down.
Something like a year ago A B. Hulit
Of Topeka, the founder of the magazine
Modern Mexico and a promoter and gen.
eral ruStler. who has Organized . nIIrnhe,