The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1922-09-29

dustrial region is even larger THAI
the mining area, for II OverflOWS TO the
southwest and includes the famous
factory towns Of Barmen, Elberfeld
and S~olingen.
Essen's Sudden Rise.
Boom" towns of mushroom grc%i1
are not peculiar to America, as the
startling rise of Essen proves. ThS.gf
founded away back in the Ninth cen
fury, it s%lumbered along for hundreGG
of years, an obscure, unimpOrtant ham
let. Even as late as 1850 il had hard
~ more than 10000 people. Then this
krupp bOom-the rise of the creates,
machine shop the world has ever seer
- struck it, and today the city house,
half Il million.
Set in the heart Of the coal fields,
crowded with endless industrial plants
whose tall chimneys belch etcrna'
smoke and fumes, the great workshop
fairly throbs with power and energy,
The o and rattle of ceaSeleSS wheel
and the din of giant hammers pOunG
ing on metal seem to keep the whole
town atremble.
Here every form of iron and steel
article is made, from boys skates &c
giant marine engine shafts. Curious.
~ enough, even some of the smoke,
or the fumes from the SmokestackS,
il caught and converted into & gax
that furnishes more power to rIA gac
mills
More than a hundred ycaN ego t..
first Krupp set up his small, crudt
shop and began TO make by hand tht
tools, the drills and chisels, used b.
tanners, blacksmiths and carpenters
along the Ruhr and the Rhine. He al.
SO made dies for use in the mint Of
the government. Within 30 years. due
to thet old ambition for expansion
Krupp tools were known and used n
far away as Greece and India.
Ttco came the great era of mass
production in steam engines, hammers
steel tires for railway cars, cast-stee.
shafts for river and ocean steamers
and finally that astonishing output OF
suns NV liio IIdtC Which, DlOlSlll
the militaristic nations of the world
to buy at Essen.
The daily oar Of artillery at the
proving grounds, where each new CUR
was tested, added to the din OF
whistles, rushing trains, and rattling
gears, made pre-war Rubr probably
the nOiSieSt place on earth. 1t is noisy
enough snow, but the great guns are
silent; krupp makes them no more
The big latheS that once made guns
e. every nation, from Chile to China
now turn out shafting for marine anG
other engines. Box cars for Belgium
car wheels for South America. and
whole tram-line systems for the Dutch
East Indies were some Of the orders
being filled q few months ago.
Everybody Is a Worker.
This Ruhr is pre-eminently the habi.
tat Of labor. Everybody works, and
nearly everybody works with his hands
AN army Of chemists, engineers and
technical men is employed, Of course
but they form merely a small element
of the grimy, dusty, sweaty popUla.
ton that keeps the coal moving, the
furnaces roaring, and the big lathes
turning.
The population, ~variOusly estimated
az from three ard One-half 10 four mil
lions, is not easy to determine, be.
cause thousands come and 90 as the
tide of trade rises and falls; and no
where is the worldwide house short.
age more keenly felt than in thi.
densely populated area. About MANY
of the mines the government has Sc.
up temporary barracks where thou
sands of miners are housed.
In the more picturesque and less
crowded spots of the Ruhr the over,
lords Of industry have reared THEN
villas and spacious homes; bet a dis "
tinctive leisure class. an idle rich, like
the groups conspicuous in CharlOtten.
berg, Dresden or Wiesbaden. is not
retired, but they are the aged and
pensioned wOrkmen, doing comfort
ably in the clean, coy colonies bull,
for them in cities like Essen.
A tiny speck on the map is this
heated, smoking, Ruhr, but big, llks
a cinder, in the worlds oye-a spot
that Caesar knew, a high spot in
region old in history.