yesteryear

May 2008

The Center City
Harrisonburg’s downtown once teemed with industry.

by Nancy Bondurant Jones/nbjrawley@aol.com

Yesteryear May 2008The city center of Harrisonburg has joined Staunton’s in becoming attractive and revitalized. After the Civil War and into the 20th Century, downtown beautification was never a goal — industrialization was. The half block along Water Street in Harrisonburg from the Parking Deck to the corner of Main Street boomed with industry. Cigar makers, tanners, and horse sellers were among the success stories—the latter replaced by auto sales not long after.

A map from 1912 clearly marks a site on Water Street for a cigar factory and a larger one on West Market half a block from the Court House. Along with Richmond and Danville, Harrisonburg was one of the top cigar manufacturing cities in the South with Capt. E. W. Sullivan’s cigar manufacturing one of the largest industries and business enterprises in the city.

A recent history class at James Madison University reveals this fascinating past. Professor Kevin Borg’s History 337: Public History Practicum culminated on Dec. 8, 2007, with a tour to “Explore the Texture of Business and Industry in Harrisonburg, VA at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” I missed the tour but read his students’ papers. They’re worth sharing.

JMU student Sam Riley’s research compiles details of cigar manufacturing. He lists the eight most prominent companies that centered the story of cigars in Harrisonburg as “Eshman, Grumbine and O’Donnell’s, C.A. Guyer, L.E. Hollomon Cigar Company, Pamperin Cigar Company, Inc., Sullivan’s, R. A. Van Pelt, and The Virginia Cigar Company.” Then he salts his descriptions with interesting details for each enterprise. For example, both Charles Eshman Sr. and Charles Jr. ran the cigar factory though the German immigrant Senior was better known as a famous Harrisonburg band director and clothier. Junior, who treated his workers well, paying $1.50 per day for skilled labor and $1 for unskilled, changed his career in 1900 to become a hotel proprietor. After highlighting each manufacturer, Riley ends with a more complete account of Sullivan’s:

To start out the Sullivan story, there were five Sullivan brothers, three of whom were involved in cigar manufacturing, all who were of Irish descent. John E. Sullivan, the grandfather of [now retired] city planner Bob Sullivan, made cigars and had a retail business at 58 South Main Street. He later had a store beside the Catholic Church, and by 1927 Sullivan’s Store and Cigar Factory were located at 172 North Main Street. In the Harrisonburg Weekly Record …an article from September 2, 1899, titled “Our Cigar Factory,” was about none other than Captain E. W. Sullivan. Sullivan’s cigar factory ranked… as one of the largest industries and business enterprises of the city of Harrisonburg. ….his factory on the corner of German [now Liberty] and West Market streets…had a building of three separate stories, each with its own purpose. There was a story for manufacturing, one for packing and storing, and one for customer service. At the time of the newspaper [account], he had 25 workers and the factory was at least a month behind orders… Sullivan had brands such as the Hibernia, which was “the pride of the factory, “ the American Club, which was “without a superior,” the Virginia Seal, “a very choice cigar,” and the Commercia, a 10-cent cigar for “rare excellence.” The newspaper went on to say that the Hibernia was Mr.Sullivan’s own invention….At the time… Sullivan was turning out about 100,000 cigars per month, and he was in the midst of trying to [produce] 150,000 a month, which was necessary to meet the demand for the goods.

Brother John ran the shipping department and James Sullivan was usually on the road as a salesman, traveling up and down the east coast. Riley points out that benefits extended beyond wage earners in the factory. “Leaf-dealers, boxmakers, packagers, label-printers, designers, etc., all shared results of the manufacturing plant.” He further writes that “the industry shows how Harrisonburg and the Valley as a whole were incredibly self-reliant and didn’t have to stretch out too far to find success in whatever it was they were working on.”

Other stops on the student-led tour allowed their guests to appreciate the Hirsch Livery and the concept that Water Street in Harrisonburg was “the center of the Virginia horse market from the latter part of the 19th C into the 20th C.” According to student Devon Rowan:

Its close proximity to the railroad depot and access to the water of Black’s Run made it the ideal location for horse and livestock stables. On Court Days, the entire street became a showroom for various horsemen to present their stock of horses. People came from all over the state to participate in the horse market here.An average of 6 carloads of horses were shipped out by train each month. With 20 horses per carload, that averaged out to 1,440 horses shipped annually, bringing in an annual receipt of $158,400….In March 1889, the Rockingham Register stated that 15 carloads were shipped after Court Day, representing a peak time for the horse market. A 1949 Daily News-Record article stated that until the close of World War I, Harrisonburg was one of the principal draft horse markets of the East.

Cigar manufacturing and horse sales were two of the six local businesses probed by students in Dr. Borg’s Public History Practicum. During their December tour, they led local residents to explore buildings (or skeletons of buildings) that once housed the Hirsch Livery, Houck Tannery, Electric and Water Utilities, Rockingham Mills, Cigar Making and the Early Automobile Businesses.Houck Tannery may be the most difficult industry for modern readers to understand. But in an age powered by horses, leather was an essential need – from the harness in the field connected to the plow, to the saddle for a horse, to the reins connecting a carriage, to chaps and trousers sturdier than blue jeans, among the hundreds of uses. Student Trey VanHout details the process and its value:

J.P. Houck opened the tannery in Harrisonburg in 1879 in conjunction with the England & Bryan Leather firm of Philadelphia. In 1878 Houck purchased the factory from Jonas Loewenbach and began advertising the acquisition of any bark or hides for the tannery. The family soon opened an upscale store on Main Street to market some of their wares and other items.

In 1881, a local reporter touring Houck Tannery noted a 25-horse power steam engine to run the machinery with 25 workers to produce 400 hides each week, of which 100 were turned into harness leather and shipped to Baltimore. To produce these products, the tannery consumed 2,000 cords of bark each year—tree bark stripped from Chestnut Oaks in the forests all around the Valley and Alleghany Mountain forests. The reporter quickly recognized the areas surrounding Harrisonburg could not support the amount of bark needed for the future. Yet in 1886 Houck doubled the size of the tannery to double his production to 400 sides (versus hides) of leather a week. VanHout explains the difference between a side and a hide:

The tannery and its steam engines could produce more than just power for machines, Houck decided. The difference between a side of leather and a hide is that hides can be [from] any animal hide—deer, rabbit, etc. A side of leather is one half of a cow hide when it is cut vertically down the center….In an issue of the Rockingham Register dated October 16, 1884, it is stated that Houck did an annual business of $100,000 and was one of the biggest tanneries in the state of Virginia….in the late 19th Century to use his steam engines to produce electricity for Harrisonburg. On December 22, 1890, the first electrical lights were turned on in town. Houck operated this power company until early in the 20th Century when Harrisonburg decided to produce its own electricity, setting up a hydroelectric dam on the Shenandoah River.

The tanning industry began to fade in the 20th century for a number of reasons. Motor vehicles gradually replaced the horse as the primary means of transportation. But perhaps even more important was that the supply of bark from surrounding areas was becoming extinct. Without bark, no tannery could remain open. VanHout concludes his research with, “There is no record of the date that the tannery officially shut down, but on December 3, 1929, the smokestack that used to mark the Harrisonburg skyline was imploded by dynamite.”During the public history tour, students also highlighted the city’s early electric and water utilities, automobile businesses, and Rockingham Mills. And in case you’re wondering about the term “Public History,” it’s simply offering history to the general public outside academia. This column is an example. If you’ve read this far, you’re a student of Public History.Local historian Nancy Bondurant Jones lives in Harrisonburg. Dr. Kevin Borg recently lectured in France on the subject of his popular book “Auto Mechanics: Technology & Expertise in 20th Century America.” He credits Frank Strassler, executive director of the Historic Staunton Foundation, and Dale McAllister, Director of the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Historical Society, as two leaders who prompted and supported his class.Borg also recommends these essays: http://people.jmu.edu/borgkl/ RRBandOMain.htm and White Star Mills http://people.jmu.edu/borgkl/ WhiteStarMillsMain.htm .