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HBE BEST EQUIPPED PLANING MILL IN THE SOUTH I
,Magnificent Success of the Gresham
<4
Planing Mill Company.
SThe Story of the Big Business One Man Has Built
Up in Three Years Time.
“Greater Georgia” may or may
become a realization, though
the scheme is worth the trying But
Georgia, with its unlimited resour
ces, is already a great State ; and
Griffin, whose percentage of growth
has been larger since 1890 than any
- other community in Georgia, is
rapidly becoming Greater Griffin by
tty? enterprise of its own citizens,
Without waiting for oitside aid.
There have always been opportu
/ nities in Griffin for a young man of
t pluck, enterprise and business abili
’ ty to make a success and good monev
l in any one of various undertakings ;
r but while some have caught oppor
tunity and held it, many other
have failed to see it here and sough’
other fields to find it. This is th*-
story of a comparatively newoomei
who has achieved a wonderful suc
cess in e fi -Id hitherto unproduct
ive, adding a factor to Griffin’s
manufacturing enterprisrs that is
eqjual in character to the best of
them, and with possibiliries surpass
ing any of them. However, the
facts of its present success are suf-
JLcient for our present sco-m, -nd
, afford a story as instructive as it is
Interesting.
A Beneficial Enterprise.
When we speak of Griffin’s
“smaller enterprises,” which are
really more profitable to the town
in every way, in proportion to their
>juze, than the large co’tz sac o
ries, we are supposed to re* r to
except those mills ; but a <• t n er
prise has teared its head in the
heart of town conspicuous alike on
its main street and if s great rail
road, that oomts in the c-t‘gory of
both al rg factory and an enter
prise beneficial i eve r > wav to the
town in woch it is 1 This s
the Gresham Pla int- Mill Comp*
ny’s new pla i, with pl did fa
cilities, brlp n. a d <‘he p« tng the
cost of bud ling at all kinds in the
town and drawing trade here from
all the surrounding territory, as
well as money from other States—
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IQ COL. J. W. GRESHAM,
Proprietor of the Gresham Plax-mg Mills.
k
Julius Wilkes Gresham, the sole member of the Gresham Planing Mill
Company, is a good example of what the proper sort of man can do with a small
capital and good credit. A native of Macon, he started life as an office boy in the
v holesale grocery firm of Geo. S. Jones & Sone, and while still in knee pants got
the opportunity, through the illness of a member of the firm, to make the round
of the city as salesman —a position which he filled so well that he was allowed to
1 retain it after the pressing necessity was over, and frequently sold SIO,OOO worth
of goods on a round and collected as much.
Five years ago, having married a Barnesville lady, he came to Griffin and
went into the buggy business. Three years ago he thought he saw an opportunity
' in a then neglected branch of business in which many others preceding him had
failed, and bought out Osborn & Wolcott’s old planing mill. Now, at the age of
twenty-eight, when most men are just beginning to climb the business ladder,
he stands high up on the rungs, with a magnificent new manufactory all his own,
representing an investment of $50,000 and with a business easily worth twice
that much and increasing every day.
In addition, Mr. Gresham owns a handsome residence on Tenth street, which
he has just remodeled, and where he lives happily with hie wife and one child.
He is a qualified colonel on Governor Terrell's staff and a prominent factor in
Griffin’s business and social life.
its liberal management, its hundred
of employes and its payroll cf <SOO
so 1700 per week.
A Perfect Planing Mill.
The Gresham Planing Mill Com
pany occupies a square acre of
ground at the intersection of Hill
md Broadway, on the spot long left
vacant- by the burning ot the old
Georgia hotel, until J. W. Gresham
■ame along and was willing to pay
■ fair price for a piece of property
which everybody wanted to take off
ds hands at a good profit as soon
she had bought it But he has
emonstrated that he had good use
<>r it himself.
The planing mill is a handsome,
veil lighted, two story brick bulld
og, well raised off the ground, with
df y-four feet frontage on Broadway
nd the Central railroad and run
ning back two hundred and ten feet
n Hill street. In the front are
sommodious and convergent offices
nd the sto -k room for the largest
upply of paints between Atlanta
md Macon In the rear and up
stairs are the various pieces of new
and latest improved machinery noc-
sarv to equip the finest planing
oil >n tn Bou r b, all run by the
werful 150 horse power engine,
ind running so smoothly that those
vi o have only experienced the elat
er and clutter of the oil fashioned
oianing mill know nos whether to
be more surprised at the compara-
■ve absence of noise or the perfect
‘vstem and lack of litter where so
much fioishf-d product is being
U' ned out with lightning speed.
Some Beautiful Machinery
A t»-c nicil description of the va
rious machines woula be as impos
’bl-torhe newspaper reporter as
i w< ud be uninteresting and dry
is tie filing sawdust and shavings
r ihe average reader Yet it is al
ways inter* s’ing to watch by the
h ur the perfect mechanism with
which the modern woodworker ac
c implisbes in a moment what it
used to take the carpenter a day to
d>lf ss perfectly. And in this sac-
tory some of the new machines are
as far advanced over those of a few
years ago as the latter were over
the hand tools of a couple of gener
ations before.
Just think of a resaw that cuts
planks into half their thickness and
with a 12,000 pound planer turns
out complete flooring at the rate of
yr— ’ r> . /■ y 7~7 \' - 1
Sfc*-’
-I •
THE GRESHAM PLANING MILL COMPANY’S NEW PLANT.
An Important Addition to Griffin’s Industries, Recently Erected at the Corner of Broadway
and Hill Street.
sixty-five to eighty feet a minute—
and a self-fed rip saw with the
same capacity. Then there is a
machine that will pat a finished
surface on four sides of a twenty
four inch piece of lumber in a pair
of seconds ; and a doweling machine
that turns out 25,000 dowels a day,
and besides those used at home
furnishes
Dowels for the Biggest
Factory in Macon.
Dowels, as you may or may not
know, being the wooden pins with
which doors and sashes are fastened
together.
Speaking of doors, as this is one
of the greatest products of the fac
tory, we will simply mention the
large double-e id tenator, with a
capacity ot 1,500 openings a day,
a thirty-six inch diagonal planer
and sander ani a triple drum
sander in connection with the same,
that are twentieth century marvels
in the way of door making ma
chinery.
But we can not even enumerate
the different pieces of modern
machinery here, and take the ele
vator for up-stairs, taking merely
a glimpse at the capacity of two
hundred window and door frames a
day. Here also one hundred man
tels can ba turned out in a day’s
work, made of pine or hardwood
and worth from fifty cents to fifty
dollars. Some beautiful specimens
of these we had seen as we came
in the frant door, while a very
handsome specimen at the recent
hospital bazaar was the generous
gift of Mr. Gresham and will be
placed in the Baptist pastorion.
Great Lumber Sheds and
Warehouse.
So much costly machinery, repre
senting capital invested and requir
ing good men to run it, must eat
up lots of lumber to be profitable, as
an estimate ot its capacity will
show, being 500 openings (the
technical term for doors and win
dows) per day, 50,000 feet of dressed
lumber per day, including flooring,
ceiling, weatherboarding and sized
lumber or all kinds ; 25,000 feet of
moulding, and a dry kiln capacity
of 20,000. Most of the lumber is
bought kiln dried to save the
freight on useless sap.
Looking at the yards and sheds,
we find that they are equal to the
demands, with a capacity for dress
ed and dried lumber of 200,000 feet
and shed room for between 750,000
and 1,000,000 feet. Three to four
carloads of lumber have actually
been received every day since the
building was occupied on the first
of February.
No finished product is left in the
factory, being shipped directly out
in oars at the door or placed in the
•large warehouse formerly used as a
buggy depository further up on Hill
street, which is two storeys high
ani has dimensions of forty feet
by ninety.
What the Mill Turns Out.
The foregoing description of the
mill itself gives some idea of what
. its products are, but it is by no
menus complete, for from this in
stitution are furnished all the
material necessary for any kind of
building. Not only the openings
but the coverings and the finishings
are supplied on the quickest notice
from the base sill to the roof comb
Not only woodwork is here, but the
paint, while in the yard are seen
four cars of lime and cement, the
latter including three brands, from
the cheapest to the highest priced.
Estimates are furnished on all
kinds of mill work and prioes and
character of work are guaranteed
to be all right—a guarantee which
the News and Sun, from personal
knowledge and considerable trans-
actions, is prepared to underwrite,
as will all the many other Griffin
citizens who have had dealings with
the proprietor.
Some Orders on the Books.
After all, however, it is not what
a manufactory can do—though it is
much satisfaction to run one that
is equal to every emergency—but
what it does do that tells the story
of its success And this the best
part of this sketch.
Mr. Gresham returned Thursday
night from a trip to Birmingham,
where are located various planing
mills but none so up to date as his,
and showed the reporter an order he
had obtained there for 7,640 doors,
592 mantels, and mouldings, casings
and windows to bring the amount
up to SIO,OOO. All of these must be
nif de, as ho has not been able to
accumulate any stock on hand, sell
ing all his produce at good prices
before they have pas-ed through a
single process of manufacture.
He also showed an order on the
books for a car of mouldings, balus
ters and rails to go to Atlanta,
amounting to <7OO. Another order
for 1,295 openings, amounting to
$1,500, will require two oars. He
has no trouble in selling his goods
in Atlanta, constantly underselling
the biggest retailers there and yet
making a good profit, and receiving
duplicate orders that show the satis
faction given.
Not to enumerate too many, the
books of the company show orders
to ba filled amounting by actual
count to $39,519.
Some of the Work en
Hand in Griffin.
An even plainer evidence of the
demand for the product of the
Gre’bam Planing Mill Company is
the material found in most of the
buildings recently constructed in
Griffin.
Every piece of the woodwork that
reconstructed the exterior and in
terior of the old Griffin Female Col
lege into one of the handsomest and
finest finished mansions in Georgia,
the residence of Colonel T. R. Mills,
was turned out to order in this fac
tory.
The still more elaborate altera
tions and renovations now being
made in Captain W. J. Kincaid’s
palatial residence are the perfect
products of the modern machinery
that we have just mentioned.
All the lumber in the Boyd-Mang
ham Mdls and cottages, amounting to
over 1,000,000 feet, was supplied by
Mr. Gresham, and this concern paid
him inside of six months over
$.50,000 for material used.
All the material in the Griffin
Knitting Mills, as well as in sixteen
residences now under construction
in this city, qomes from this factory.
An Insatiable Maw for
Production.
From this splendid showing, it
will oe seen that the Gresham
Planing Mill is on the topmost wave
of success and it would seem that
its proprietor has his hands full.
Such an opinion, however, shows a
wrong conception of the insatiable
maw of modern machinery for raw
material f.-om which it may turn
out finished produces. There is
hardly any limit to the capacity of
such a perfectly equipped plant as
the one here pictured, and with a
fully experienced and skilled
superintendent, who has recently
resigned from the same position in
in the largest planing mill in the
great wood manufacturing city of
Macon to accept the position here,
all the work will be handled that
can come in and be properly taken
care of.
What Mr. Gresham has accom
pile bed in the three abort years
that he has taken to build up thia
great industry is sufficient evidence
that he is not going to cease to
hustle. But as we are dealing only
with facts up to date, we decline to
look at even the most patent pos
sibilities, and simply wish th*
proprietor of this splendid enier
prise all the good fortune to which
he is so thoroughly entitled and
hope that he may long continue to
be one of the leading hustlers of
Griffin and an examaple to those
less enterprising.
| ■ ■ ■ S«■'"W'
J. M. BASSETT.
Superintendent of the Gresham
Planing Mill Company,
John Madison Bassett, who has just
left the employ of R. O. Wilders Sons,
the best planing mill firm in Macon,
where he had worked for seventeen
years and been supeiintendent for the
last >even, would not consider his pres
ent position until he had first looked
over Mr. Gresham’s piant and decided
it to be tho most up-to-date in this sec
tion. He is a thoroughly competent
workman, having worked his way up
from the boiler room, and did not pro
pose to throw away his reputation and
experience on a second-class plant.
Mr. Bassatt, like his employer, is just
in the vigor of young manhood, being
thirty-three years old, and bas a wife
and four children, whom he will bring
up from Macon this week and iustall in
Milton Daniel’s new house on Poplar
street- He is a citizen whom we are
glad to welcome.
A Startling Test.
To sava a life, G. Merritt,
of No. Mahoooany, Pa., made a
startling test, resulting in a won
derful cure. He writes : “A patient
was attacked with violent hem
orrhages, caused by ulceration of
the stomach. I had often found
Electric Bitters excellent for acute
stomach and liver troubles so I pre
scribed them. The patient gained
from the first, and has not had an
attack in fourteen months.” Elec
tric Bitters are positively guaran
teed for dyspepsia, indigestion, con
stipation and kidney troubles. Try
them. Only 50c at Carlisle & Ward
and Brooks Drug Store.
DO YOU GET UP
WITH A LAJIE BACK?
Kidney Troabte Makes Yon Miserable.
Almost everybody who reads the news
papers is sure to know of the wonderful
it ij cures made by Dr.
—i Kilmer’s Swamp Root,
I the erßat • tldne y. liver
>— an< l Bladde. remedy.
- J r )s f’ eat rnedk
‘Mt 1 F-5 caltrlum P h of the
\ V~I I I |Bji| teen th cen'.ury; dis-
li V* Pty covered afUr > ears
r*FE ’ 1 wvF'il scientific research by
( j <" ( Dr. Kilmer, the eml-
11.- — * nent Sidney and blad-
der specialist, and is
wonderfully successful In promptly curing
lame back, kidney, bladder, uric acid trou
bles and Bright s Disease, which is the worst
form of kidney trouble.
Dr. Kilmer’s Swamp-Root is not rec
ommended for everything but if you have kid
ney, liver or bladder trouble it will be found
just the remedy you need. It has been tested
in so many ways, in hospital work, in priva’a
practice, among the helpless too poor to p rr
chase relief and has proved so successful in
every case that a special arrangement has
been made by which all readers of this paper
who have not already tried it, may have a
sample bottle sent free by mail, also a book
telling more about Swamp-Roet and how to
find out if you have kidney or bladder trout j.
When writing mention reading this generoua
offer in this paper and
send your address
Dr. Kilmer & Co., Bing
hamton, N. Y. The
regular fifty cent and Home ot Bw»mp-Ro«
4oliar sizes are sold by all good druggista
Don’t make any mistake, but re.
member the name. Swamp-Root. Dr.
Kilmer’s Swamp Root, and the i-ddreas.
Birghainton, N. Y., on every bottles.
Administrator’s Sale.
f
STATE OE GEORGIA - t-PALDina
County.
By virtue of an order granted by the
court of ordinary of Spalding county,
Georgia, at the April term, 1903. of said
court, I will sell to the highest bidder be
fore the court house door in Grithn, Ga„
between the legal hours of sale, on the
first Tuesday in May, 1003, seventeen
shares of the capital stock of the Griffin
Grocery Company. Mold as the property
of J. W. Bullard, late of said county,
deecased, for the purpose of paving the
debts and division among the heirs of
said deceased. Term* cash.
ANNA BULL.ART),
Admldlstratilx of J. W. Bullard, de
ceased.
June Sheriff's Sale.
Will be fold before the court bouse door
in the city of Griffin on the first Tuesday
in June, 1903, between the legal hours
of sale, the following described property,
to-wit:
Fifty acres of land, more or less, in
Union district. W. M , Spalding county,
Georgia, No. 43, bounded as follows: on
the north by Mrs. Tom King, on the east
by the estate of William Rodgers, deceas
ed, on the south and by H P. Ogle
tree. Levied on and sold as he property
of J. T. Starr to satisfy an execution is
sued from the Justice Court, 1069th dis
trict G. M., in favor of A. C. Matthews
and A. O. Gay vs. J. T. Starr. Tenant
in possession legally notified.
W. T. FREEMAN,
Sheriff H. C.. Ga.
Dissolution of Co-partner
ship.
The partnership heretofore existing be
tween H. P. Eady and J. A. Brooks,
under the firm name of H. P. Eady &
Co., is this day dissolved by mutual con
sem . H. P- E»dy succeeds in the busi
ness of the firm and will continue the
business under the name nf H. P. Etdy.
H. P. Eady assumes all indebtedness‘of
the firm and will collect all debts due the
firm. This April 30, x 903. *
H. P. BAD 1 ?,
J. A. BROOKS.
Administrator’s Sale.
GEORGlA—Spalding County.
By virtue of an order printed by the
court of < rdinary ot Spalding county,
Georgia, at the May term, 1903. we will
sell to the highest bidder for cash before
the court house doors in Griffin, between
the legal hours of sale, on the first Tues
day in June next, the following property,
being part of the i s*ate of R. S. Connell,
deceused, to vzit: One undivided ono
ha'.f Interest in one small house and lot
in East Griffin, Spulding County, Georgia,
bounded on the north by Turner Rivera,
on the east by Victor 'troud, on the south
by an alley and on thi west bv Bob
Griggs, the other one-half Interest to said
property being owned by B. R. Blakely.
Bold for the purpose of distribution
among the heirs of R. S Conned deceas
ed. Terms cash.
J J. WALKER.
C. W. HENDERSON,
Admrs. of the estate of R. S. Connell,
deceased.
GEORGlA—Spalding County.
Wheress, Mrs. Anna Ballard, adminis
tratrix of J W Bullard, represents to
the court in her petition, du'y filed and
entered on record, that she bus fully ad
ministered J. W. Bullard’s estate: This
is therefore to cite all persons concerned,
kindred and creditors, to show cause, if
any they can, why said administratrix
should not be discharged from her ad
ministration, and receive letters of dis
mission, on the first Monday in June,
1903, J. A. DREWRY,
May >, 1903. Ordinary.
GEORGlA—Spalding County.
To All Whom it May Concern: Mrs. J.‘
B. Smith having, In proper form, applied
to me for permanent letters of administra
tion on the estate ot Mrs. N. L. Stearns,
late of said county, this is to cite all
and singular the creditors and next of
kin of Mrs. N. L, Stearns to be and
appear at my office in Griffin, Ga., on the
first Monday in June next by ten o’clock
a. m., and to show cause, if any they can,
why permanent administration should
no, be granted to Mrs. J. B. Smith on
Mri N. L Steam’s estate. Wit
ness my hand and official signature, thia
&tn day of May, 1903.
J. A DREWRY,
Ordinary.
— ' I . .1* — —t
Notice to Debtors and Creditors;.
GEORGIA —Spalding County.
All persons having claims and demand®,
against the estate of J. 8. Boyntoi.de
ceased, will present the same to me in
terms of the law. All persons indebted
to the said deceased are hereby request o -!,;
to make immediate payment.
R. T. DANIEL, Adm'r,
Griffin, Ga., May 4,1903.