Menasha Hub and Spoke Factory

From: History of Winnebago County, Wisconsin, and Early History of the Northwest by Richard J. Harney (1880)

The Menasha hub, spoke, bending and general wagon and carriage stock factory of Webster and Lawson, was established in 1856, by A. J. Webster, the senior member of the firm, in a small way.

The original factory was a small building located on the dam, on the present site of the Coral Mills. Early in May of that year the high water carried away a portion of the dam, and also a part of the canal bank, leaving the embryo spoke factory cut off from the mainland, and without power to do anything; thus necessitating a removal to some other locality. There being no available building in Menasha, it was decided to remove to Neenah. The contents of the factory were, therefore, loaded on a small scow and towed to Neenah, where it remained but one year, doing a small and unsatisfactory business.   At the expiration of one year the machinery was moved from Neenah back to Menasha, into the Bowman Building, where it remained one year, when another break in the canal caused a suspension for the season. It was then moved into the large Williams building, in the fall of 1858.  Here it remained until the year 1861, when Mr. P. V. Lawson, who had been engaged in the manufacture of sash, doors and blinds, for some time, selling out his business, entered into a partnership with Mr. Webster, under the firm name of Webster and Lawson. During that year, the firm built, on the site now occupied by. their extensive works, a small factory, which was found to be inadequate to the wants of their increasing business, when additions were made to the buildings, and steam power added. 

The business continued to grow and extend, requiring enlarged manufacturing facilities. More land was, therefore, purchased, buildings erected, and new machinery put in the same.  The works have since then been enlarged, from time to time, until they now occupy some ten acres of ground, with extensive shipping-docks, storerooms, and railroad side-tracks.  This mammoth factory now employs throughout the year one hundred and seventy-five men, and manufactures 2,500,000 spokes, 120,000 hubs, 520,000 sawed felloes, 15,000 sets of bent felloes, and large quantities of shafts, poles, bows, sleigh and cutter material, and hard and soft wood lumber, aggregating a value of $175,000.  ("Felloes" is an Old English word that means the rim or a section of the rim of a wheel supported by spokes.)  The manufactures of the firm are widely known, being shipped over a wide extent of country, from New York to Oregon.   The material used is oak, hickory, ash, elm and maple, of which 6,ooo,ooo feet are required per annum to supply their works.  Their network of railroad side-tracks and shipping docks give every facility for shipment, both by land and water, and the business of the concern is conducted on the most systematic principles, by thoroughgoing and energetic business men.