Sioux City, Woodbury County, Iowa Miscellaneous Manufactories

Among the manufacturing interests of the city, which can only be mentioned without giving any detailed account are: C.F. Hoyt's Vinegar Works, employing five men; John Beck's planing mill, fifteen men; A.J. Millard's wood working shop, four men; Barker & Petty, barrel and butter tub factory, fourteen men; R. Seltzer's brewery, eleven men; Franz & Co.'s brewery, thirteen men; City flouring mills steam, ten men; the Floyd flouring mills, water power, eight men; the brick yards of J. Rochele, Thomas Green and C.B. Woodley, the two latter having steam power, and altogether employing ninety men during the season; John Griffin's candy factory, three men; and the wagon shops of Trudell Bros., Dineen Bros., and Reeve & Trudell, and Brown Bros., together employing forty-three men; and the cigar factories of Amsler & Radcliff, George Mauer, and A.M. Ashley, which furnish employment to twenty-four workmen. The following table, showing the business of these, and numerous smaller manufactories, during 1881, will give the reader some idea of the importance of these industries:

This table does not include the output of the pork house, nor of the St. Paul shops. Owing, mostly, to the active exertions of the Board of Trade, several other manufacturing enterprises are either assured or in prospects. Among these are chemical works, for which part of the apparatus has arrived at this writing; a pump foundry, for which ground has been leased; clay pipe works, a large distillery, a flax mill, and numerous others yet too vague to take position as historical facts.

The Button Factory

The Sioux City Button Manufacturing Company was incorporated October 15th, 1881, with a paid-up capital of $10,000. Its manufactory is located on the West Side, and is a substantial three-story brick building, well supplied with all necessary machinery. The works were set in operation in January 1882, and the first finished buttons were turned out on the 26th of the same month. The factory, at present, is exclusively devoted to the manufacturing of buttons from horn, and when run to its full capacity, will afford employment for seventy operatives. The advantages enjoyed by the company in obtaining the raw material for its products, enable them to successfully compete with eastern manufacturers for trade in the East, while the freights that the latter have to pay, on the raw material and manufactured articles, will preclude the possibility of their entering western markets as competitors of this home manufactory. All grades of buttons will be made, and it is the intention of the company to handle their goods through jobbers only. The company is composed entirely of Sioux City men, and the machinery, excepting the lathes and presses, are nearly all of Sioux City make.

Woodbury County

Woodbury County Iowa, History of Western Iowa, 1882