The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1908-06-23
DEATH BECKONS
AND v. B. LEEDS
ANSWERS THE CALL
Continued From Page One.)

Miller and Leeds were CHOSEN 10 nave
charge.
This task was completed in 1890
and when Leeds returned to Rich
mond, he was appointed superinten-
dent of the Richmond division. on
March Is, 1890. In this position, he
was the youngest superintendent on
the Pennsylvania lines and was look
ed upon as coming railroad man.
Although he engaged in the tin-plate
industry in the meantime, he did not
resign from the SUPPLEMENTARY OF
the division until March 81. 1894.
It was while he was at the head of
the Richmond division of the Pennsyl-
yania that the notice of the young SUI
perintendent was drawn upon Elwood,
then a small town inside the gas belt
being doomed by the railroad COM
pany. Up to that time the manufac-
turing of tin plate had been almost en-
tirely abroad, but Mr.. Leeds saw in
Elwood ideal conditions and together
with some of his friends. organized
a company on paper. 1t was about
year after he had returned to Rich
mond and the plans were almost COM
pleted for starting the plant.
But on February %. 1891. there oc-
Cured an accident that probably
changed the whole career of William
B. Leeds. A train bearing a number
of the men interested in the tin-plate
deal was derailed at Hagerstown and
Otis Deal. who had been slated to run
the new enterprise, was killed. The
duty then devolved upon Mr.. Leeds,
who had been planning the factory
with his skilled mechanical mind, and
from this time a he was the moving
factor in the great plant His princi-
pal business partner and associate
Daniel G.. Reid, then a young bank
clerk in Richmond. and while Reid ar
ranged the finances. Leeds attended
to the mechanical end and it was
largely his Judgment and scrupulous
attention to details that finally put
the Anne rican Tin Plate company up
on paying basis.
Several Richmond people were in
duced to invest in the new company
and many did so thinking they were
throwing 1heir money away. For the
first two years. from the time the
late William Mckinley, then the sue
cessful champion of the protective
tariff measure, opened the mills at FL
wood in 1892, the plant paid not a
cent in dividends and with the excep-
ton of very few. Leeds and Reid
bought up the interests of the other
investors and at last securing foot
hold in the American market became
millionaires almost in day. The
protective tariff of two dollars a box,
imposed on foreign made tin by con-
gress, built up a $4,000 900 industry
and heaped millions upon the brainy
and energetic men who conceived the
idea
BY 1895 the tin plant at Elwood was
an enormous masterpiece of modern
industrialism and the dividends were
far beyond the dreams of even the
promoters. Reid and Leeds then pur-
chased a steel mill at Indianapolis, in
tending to make steel billets there,
but this venture was not so successful
and it was finally sold to John w.
Gates.
The following year William B..
Leeds removed with his wife and son
to Chicago and in the fall of 1897, the
tin-plate trust ives formed. under the
title of the American Tin-Plate COM
nany, with capital stock of $4,000
600. The Moore Brothers, prominent
financiers and market dealers in Chi
cago. were brought In on this deal and
received a new start. They had re-
Gently failed with their Diamond
Match Co, and their indebtedness
reached s5,000.000 at this time. They
soon repaid all this and have since be-
come among the wealthiest men in
the country
There now follows a period of
shrewd financial manipulation, every
deal being successful and pouring mil
lions into the hands that held the
reins. The American Hoop company,
The American Steel and Wire Nail
company. the National Steel Co. and
the American Tin Can company were
all organized under the direction of
William B. Leeds and his associates
and when, year or two later. the
Steel trust was formed. with its bill
lion-dollar capital. all of the holdings
of the Leeds-Reid-Moo Brothers al.
lance were turned into the trust and
cash and stock paid in return.
With this money. the four men who
had now been associated for four
years. bought controlling interest in
the Chicago. Rock Island and Pacific
railway, and also bought outright
twenty-one other railroads, all con.
Meeting with the c.. r. l. & P. and
incorporated them all in the Rock Is
land system, now one of the most
successful transcontinental railroads
operating west of Chicago. When the
company reorganized, William B
Leeds was elected president. He re
signed the following year but ref>ine6
his place as chairman of the board OF
directors for two years more. Since
that time. he has not actively engaged
in business other than attending to q
few private transactions.
In August of 1900, William B. Leeds
was divorced from his wife, Mrs. Jen
ME Leeds getting the decree in Chi
cago. Her son, Rudolph Gaar Leeds
has remained with her and is now
editor of the Palladium in this civ