American Wire Fabric Company

REYNOLDS, CURTIS, PETERSON, GATES, SEAMAN, SMITH, LAMB, CHRISTIAN

Posted By: Nettie Mae (email)
Date: 11/29/2023 at 13:58:02

Source: The Clinton Mirror, Clinton Iowa, April 30, 1904, page 12

This new corporation with $100,000 capital are now engaged here in building the machinery, which is of a special character, for the production of wire cloth for screen doors, windows, etc. The location of the factory buildings has not been announced but will doubtless be south of the North-western tracks.
The yearly consumption of wire cloth is now beyond the ability of the manufacturers to supply. Mr. E. E. Reynolds, the only foreign investor in the enterprise, is an experienced and successful manufacturer of wire cloth and will superintend the mills.
The officers of the company are C. F. Curtis, President, James Peterson, Vice President, E.E. Reynolds, Secretary and Manager, Marvin J. Gates, Treasurer, and they with H. W. Seaman, A. G. Smith and Lafayette Lamb constitute the Board of Directors.
This will be an important addition to the manufacturers of Clinton.

Source: The Clinton Advertiser, Clinton Iowa, March 24, 1917, Page 14

Thousands of Miles of Wire Into Screens
Strands by the hundred used in weaving fabric.
Is Fly Swatter Center
By Far Largest Output of That Product is Centered in Clinton -- Over Hundred Looms Here.
It takes considerable expansion of the imagination to realize the stretch of wire that would be required for a telegraph line from Clinton to New York. Yet there are practically 1,000 miles of wire wound on a single drum such as are used at the Clinton factory of the American Wire Fabric company.
A peep into the machinery room at this big Clinton factory discloses line upon line of looms in continuous operation, 112 looms in all. Taking a closer look, for example, at the loom making screen 48 inches wide with the standard mesh of 12 to the inch, there are found 578 separate strands of steel wire reeling off the drum as the loom is operated and the shuttle is carried back and forth.
Clinton is the greatest fly swatter center in the United States and therefore the world. More wire screen for fly swatters 4 3/4 inches wide is turned out here than at any other point.
The loom, which is a double shuttle machine, used in making this narrow width screen, is a different Clinton product, as M. L. Christian, the local manager, is the inventor of it, and the company holds the patents. The company has two other big factories, the largest at Niles, Mich., and the other at Mount Wolf, Pa.
It is interesting to trace the progress of the wire from the time it is taken off the reels in which it comes, and transferred to the large drums and to the shuttles. The drums are set up with the looms, which are operated on much the same principle as an ordinary textile or carpet loom.
The woven screen is first wound on rolls containing 1,000 lineal feet, and then placed in an annealing furnace where it is made more durable. Next it travels through a bath of screen paint and then travels up and down in a tower, 105 feet in height, being exposed to warm air to dry the paint. There is one continuous stretch of 576 lineal feet of screen unwound from each drum and exposed to the air at one time. After it has been given more time to dry, the screen is cut in 100-foot lengths and rolled up in bundles for commercial delivery.
The Varied Products
The various products of the company at its local and other factories, include the steel wire screen, the copper screen, bronze, brass, tin monel metal, hot galvanoid screens. Monel metal is an alloy of copper and zinc, and the galvanoid wire is steel electroplated with zinc.
Ornamental screens with 24 meshes to the inch are also made by the company at its other plants.
The company handles a tremendous export business, going to almost all quarters of the globe: Asia, Australia and South Africa, principally to the British possessions in these continents.
Asset to City
The local factory is a decided asset to the city of Clinton, for here are employed almost constantly about 60 people, of whom about half are men and half women and girls. The American Wire Fabric company is under the following efficient management:
President -- C. K. Anderson, Chicago
Vice-President -- C. L. Hoff, York, Pa.
Secretary and Treasurer --M. N. Gilbert, Chicago
President of Board -- H. W. Seaman, Clinton and Chicago
Manager at Clinton -- M. L. Christian
Cashier at Clinton -- D. S. Seaman