Charles F. Curtis

As printed in 1911

CHARLES F. CURTIS.

The lumber interests had the most to do with the building up of the city of Clinton. A few names are prominently connected with that industry, but the saw-mill kings have finished their work at Clinton, their interests are now more or less scattered and the one big lumber industry which remains at Clinton and which was not driven away by the failing of the Wisconsin forests is the enormous sash, door, and blind factory, founded by the gentleman whose name heads this article.

Charles F. Curtis was born on April 3. 1846, in Oxford, Chenango county. New York, the son of John S. and Elizabeth (Carpenter) Curtis, both natives of New York and of English ancestry. John S. Curtis was born on March 31, 1818, his wife on March 30, 1822. They moved to a farm in Ogle county. Illinois, near Rochelle. in 1856. and lived there until 1868, when they removed to Clinton, Iowa, where Mrs. Curtis died in 1890 and Mr. Curtis in 1891. Mr. Curtis was a Republican in politics and a member of the Baptist church. He was a man of strong and forceful character.

[This passage is too damaged in the scanned book to reproduce. See the original book.]

In 1881. C. S. Curtis, a brother. Fowler Stone and S. M. Yale were taken into the firm and a branch factory started at 'ausau. Wisconsin, which has about the same capacity as the parent establishment. Tn 1882 a sales warehouse at ?kIinneapolis, under the management of S. I\I. Yale, was organized under the name of the Adams Horr Company, and in 1890 the Minneapolis ankl Wausau branches were organized as the Curtis & Yale Company. The factory at Clinton, with sheds, now covers a space of three hundred by two hundred and seventy-five feet, the offices and warehouse covers eighty by three hundred feet, with a three-story and basement building. Three hundred and seventy-five men are employed, and one thousand doors, two thousand and five hundred windows and other mill work in proportion, turned out every day. The 'ausau factory is of similar capacity, and the output of both has been greatly increased lately by the fise of improved machinery, both having for many years employed a large force of men. The Minneapolis house is supplied from Wausau. The company operates three branch jobl)ing houses, with small factories attached, each employing about a hundred men; these are the Curtis Sash & Door Compan\', at Sioux City, the Curtis, Towle & Paine Company, at Lincoln, Nebraska, and the Curtis & Gartside Company, at Oklahoma City, each supplied from the main factories. The supply of lumber for the factories was formerly obtained from Wisconsin and Michigan, but now comes from a mill in California, in which the brothers are stockholders. The products of these factories are shipped to nearly every state.

Charles F. Curtis was married in October, 1873. to Xancy Ilosford, who was born in Illinois, the daughter of A. P. Hosford, long a respected and prominent resident of Clinton, and Priscilla (Davis) Hosford. To this marriage four children were born: Mabel, who died when eleven years old; Lucy, who married Charles B. Towle, the manager of the branch house at Lincoln, Nebraska; and Edith and Florence, twins, now at home.

Mr. Curtis is a Mason, having taken the degrees of both the Scottish and York rites. In politics he is a Republican and he attends the Presbyterian church. His business connections in Clinton are varied, he being a director in the City National Bank, president of the Clinton Saddlery Company, president of the Clinton Furniture Company, vice-president of the Clinton Wire Cloth Company, and president of Curtis Brothers & Company. His success in business has been so marked as to rank him among the greatest business men of his state and of the middle West, and his fortunes have been self-made, for he started in the grocery business with one thousand dollars which his father kindly loaned him and has built up from that small start, meeting and overcoming many obstacles. While the firm of Curtis Brothers & Company have been so eminently prosperous, their road has not been always clear, and they have passed through three panics which proved the ruin of many similar establishments. The young men of Clinton have certainly in Mr. Curtis an example of the opportunities open to a young man of the right kind of intelligence and ability, even though he is not supplied with wealth at the beginning of his career.

As printed in Wolfe's history of Clinton County, Iowa (1911). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.