The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1911-03-10
a BIG. ENTERPRISE

its doings now. The people are get
ting away from US, and too many
things are happening.
Yesterday Mr.. L. P. Billingsley asked
US to take a ride with him up to Oak,
and there, almost under our very nose,
we discovered the finest appointed
and best equipped crate factory in the
state.
This mill was founded by the late
Mr.. Mcdowell, and is still called the
Mcdowell Crate and Lumber Mill.
1t is another case of tall oaks
from little acorns grow In its be-
ginning the mill and its holdings We're
very small, but now it has enough
holdings in land to supply it with logs
for twelve years, owns its own rail
way track and operates its own loco
motive. It goes four miles to the
swamps for its logs.
The main building occupies about
100 by 100 feet, and is run by
the very latest and most approved ma
chinery. There are safety saving ap-
pliances at every turn, and it is plain
even to novice to at once see that
it was planned and constructed by a
master hand.
The logs are whirled up an incline
to the saw, and when quickly ripped
into boards these in turn are as
quickly conducted by automatic APP
planes to the drying kilns. After
remaining there for the required
length of time the boards are then
conveyed to the mill proper, which is
supplied with the Billingsley patents,
and are quickly converted into box
heads.
One of these patent machines con-
sists of fourteen saws, and rips the
boards into strips of the proper width
and length in a much quicker time
than it takes to tell it. The product
of this machine for a single day, if
laid end to end in a single row, would
cover a distance of twenty miles.
Then the strips are passed through
other machines and are turned out,
complete, sixty to the minute almost
as rapidly as one can count.
With single stroke of machine
four strips are welded together and
with one stroke of another machine
the heading is nailed onto the strips,
twelve nails being inserted. 1t is al
most as marvellous machine as the
Mergenthaler linotype. and resembles
it in part. 1t works four times as fast
as the fastest machines invented up
to the time this machine was placed
on the market.
The Mcdowell Crate and Lumber
Mill turns out from twenty to twenty
seven thousand of these finished
crate heads per day The output is
more than four million annually, and
every crate is sold before it is manu-
featured
The name of the Mcdowell Crate
and Lumber Company is stamped on
each box head, and for this purpose a
heavy Universal press is used. but as
the business has grown to such large
proportions the company has just
purchased a cylinder three-color
press. and will have the firms name
and brand printed on each crate head
in three separate colors.
| Mr.. Billingsley recently installed
his machines in factory at Alder
querque, N. NJ, and is now shipping a
supply of them to Spokane, Washing.
ton. They are supplying universal
demand, and will become more and
more in use as the growing of fruits
and vegetables multiply
Besides oranges. grapefruit and lem
ons, crate heads are made for canta
loupes, beans, cabbages, egg plants
and nearly all other vegetables. peach
es apples, pineapples, etc.
i ~ OCOAA0 " u0 CAot wi.
has fortune within his grasp. and
one who has done as much as he has
ldone to completely meet demand, de
lserves to make million or more.
These machines are turned out By
the Ocala Iron Works, and are pen
etrating the whole continent
The most of the stock of the Nc
Dowell Crate and Lumber Company il
now owned by Mr.. Lee Howell and Nj
T. l. Arnold.
We were back in Ocala in less thar
an hour and a half
If you people owning autos desir,
to see an up-to-date mill in operation
go out and see this one. You vii
find it an eye-opener. There is ;
hard road all the way
WILL xrvn1l TEE no1,,- r1,~,,lo !; -,