Duplex Printing Press Company, inventors and manufacturers of newspaper printing presses, shipped their mammoth machines around the world, Union Steam Pump and American marsh Pump Company supplied hydraulic pumps for the industrialized world.
Squier was a pioneer in creating an American Company which produced violins and instrumental strings for musicians around the world. Sojourner Truth From its earliest days, Battle Creek has welcomed social and religious non-conformists. Quaker pioneer Erastus Hussey, Battle Creek underground railroad station operator operated a station on the Underground Railroad, helping escaping slaves reach freedom in Canada.
In the last years of the nineteenth century, the town became a Spiritualist center, where seances and "table knocking" were common, if inexplicable, phenomena. Sojourner Truth, nationally known as the charismatic speaker for abolition and women's rights, visited Battle Creek in She was impressed with the people she met and moved here a year later.
For the next 27 years, the illiterate ex-slave made Battle Creek her home, as she continued to travel the country, agitating for human rights for black and white alike. For the first 10 years she lived in the area, Truth had a home in the village of Harmonia, a community of Quakers and Spiritualists a few miles west of Battle Creek now the location of Fort Custer Industrial Park. In she and her family moved into town, where she lived until her death in Sojourner Truth, along with several members of her family, are buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, on the east side of the city.
Ellen White Another non-conformist was attracted by the tolerance and openness of the Battle Creek community in this period. In , a small group of Seventh-day Adventists invited visionary Ellen White, and her husband, Elder James White, to settle here and make the village the headquarters for their new denomination. In the next 50 years, the small band of believers grew to over , members world-wide.
The SDA church initiated an extensive missionary and health education evangelical ministry, established one of the largest printing and publishing houses in the United State, sponsored colleges and medical training institutions and founded a health care facility which became "the largest institution of its kind in the world.
Centered in the west end of town, known as "Advent Town," the more than 2, local church members observed the Sabbath on Saturday. From the s they adhered to revolutionary dietary and health principles, based on the teachings of Ellen White. Health These principles were put into practice by Dr. The "San," as it was known locally, was famous around the world for its water and fresh air treatments, exercise regimens and diet reform.
The San doctors were universally recognized for their diagnostic, surgical and medical expertise. These principles were put into practice by Dr. One of the first to realize that "you are what you eat," Dr. Kellogg incorporated radical dietary reforms into the San's treatment program. Within a few years the settlement became Battle Creek.
In there was a severe epidemic of cholera. Many died in the vicinity. Malaria, also was so rife that nearly everyone had it. The city had its first church in when the Methodists organized. There was mail service as early as , the postage being 25 cents a letter. Although the area was infested with Indians, the settlers experienced little violence from them. The Indians were nuisances, however, as they continually begged for food and other articles.
Life for the pioneers was not all hardship. History records that they held frequent husking and quilting bees and regular parties. His faith in the power of advertising proved to be well-founded. By Post became a millionaire through sales of Postum and Grape-Nuts, his whole wheat and malted barley cereal product.
The fortune Post amassed in just a few short years inspired scores of would-be millionaires, who saw the new cereal industry as a ticket to instant wealth. In the first decade of the 20th century, more than 40 different companies appeared and disappeared in town. Many dreamers invested their life savings, starting cereal businesses in sheds, tents and their home kitchens.
Some never survived the organizational stage, failing even before the manufacturing process commenced. However, a wide variety of products were actually made from wheat, corn, oats and rice and flavored with malt, sugar, fruits — and even celery!
When the dust settled about , there were only eight companies left, three of which have descendants in town today — Kellogg, Post and Ralston. A secondary result of the cereal boom, and the multiplicity of cereal companies, was the emergence of several support industries. Firms manufacturing ovens, conveyor belts and other equipment used by cereal companies sprang up around town.
Michigan Carton Company, founded in , still produces cereal boxes, along with a variety of shipping and packaging products. Kellogg was working for his brother at the San. Unable to walk away from his brother and the institution to which he had devoted almost a quarter of a century, W.
Through the use of sophisticated advertising techniques, technical advances in manufacturing and packaging and a shrewd sense of the public taste, Kellogg soon built a thriving company. As the company expanded and his personal fortune increased, W. This was the beginning of one of the most far reaching philanthropic efforts in the nation, known since as the W.
Kellogg Foundation. Many feel that the citizens of Battle Creek escaped the worst effects of the Depression, partially due to the creative work of W. Kellogg, the Kellogg Company and the W. Work on the W. Kellogg Junior High School and Auditorium began in , to create construction jobs for local men. As famous as cereal made Battle Creek at the turn of the century, the city was already well known around the nation and abroad as a major manufacturing center -- long before the Kelloggs and C.
Post were transforming grains into healthy breakfasts. Factories, most located in the downtown area, provided jobs for anyone who wanted to work. More than 80 manufacturing companies employed over men, representing half the factory workers in the county. Nichols and Shepard and Advance Thresher manufactured threshing machines and agricultural machinery, supplying farmers from the American farm belt to the steppes of Russia.
Scores of other businesses, large and small, manufacturing everything from cigars to opera house furniture, were located in downtown Battle Creek.
Technological progress followed economic prosperity. In the s and 80s Battle Creek saw the arrival of natural gas and telephone service, horse-drawn streetcars, electric lights, free mail service and a municipal water supply. Civic and cultural institutions kept pace. Thomas Episcopal and St. Philip Catholic churches were dedicated and a natural history museum opened in the high school.
The Battle Creek Sanitarium began its growth into a world-famous institution. A Military Town The military has been an important presence in Battle Creek since , when Camp Custer was built, almost overnight, to provide basic training for thousands of doughboys.
In just five short months in more than 8, men worked feverishly to transform farms into one of the 36 national cantonments built to prepare soldiers to fight in World War I. The 8, acre site, named for Michigan native General George Armstrong Custer, was a complete, self-sufficient city with its own water and sewer system, central heating plant, hospital, bakery, laundry, theaters, library and even facilities for training horses and mules for army service.
This influx of soldiers had a major impact, both positive and negative, on the civilian city. The influenza pandemic swept through both the Camp and the city, killing hundreds of soldiers and civilians in just a few days in September. Every church and many factories and businesses organized visiting committees. Many families entertained the soldiers and invited them home for Sunday dinner. In the name was changed to Fort Custer and the site was designated a permanent military reservation.
Another 6, acres and additional barracks were added. Another major military installation opened in town in The San had gone into receivership during the Depression and its large headquarters building was sold to the federal government and converted into a military hospital. Once again, the city offered a warm welcome to the soldiers at the Fort and Percy Jones. Battle Creek is said to be the first city in the nation to install curb cuts in downtown sidewalks, to accommodate the hundreds of amputees who traveled from Percy Jones to the downtown movie theaters each weekend.
Local industries also supported the war effort. Although the cereal companies continue to produce breakfast food, Kellogg Company also packaged K rations for the Army. Duplex Printing Press Company switched to manufacturing 37mm anti-tank gun carriages, Nichols and Shepard now Oliver produced fuselages for Boeing airplanes, while Union Steam Pump Company supplied the Navy with submarine pumps.
At the end of the war, residents eagerly prepared to return to civilian life and resume their interrupted lives. Returning GIs completed their education, married, bought houses, established a suburban lifestyle and launched the local version of the post-war baby boom.
The s were years of confidence and building. The Kellogg Community College campus and the urban renewal-flood control project in the Bottoms were completed. The new interstate highway system came through Battle Creek and the airport expanded passenger service in a new terminal. The centennial of incorporation as a city was exuberantly observed in The George Award, sponsored by the Battle Creek Enquirer, was instituted to recognize civic-minded citizens.
0コメント