Mahlon S. Long

As printed in 1908

MAHLON S. LONG, senior member of the Long & Taylor Company, a leading business house of Akron, was born at Spring Creek, Warren County, Pennsylvania,, in 1867, and is a son of Joshua W. and Matilda H. Long.

The parents of Mr. Long removed from Warren County, Pennsylvania, to Mentor, Ohio, when he was a babe of six months. His father resides at Newton Falls, Ohio, on. a farm in that vicinity, and is now retired from active life. Fonnerly he followed blacksmithing and carriage-making. In 1861, he enlisted for service in the Civil AVar, entering Company F, 19th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, but one year later was honorably discharged on account of disability.

Mahlon S. Long spent his boyhood and youth at Mentor and Toledo. In 1881 he went to Newton Falls, and was graduated from the Newton Falls High School in 1885. After teaching school for one year at the latter place, he entered Mt. Union College, and after two terms there, he went to work in the basket factory at Newton Falls. Twelve months later he went from that place to Chicago. Mr. Long remained in the metropolis of the middle west for a period of five years, mainly engaged as a salesman with a large cigar firm. In May, 1892, he.came to Akron and engaged m shipping clerk with what is nOiW the Standard Oilcloth Company. He continued with this firm for a year and a half. The panic of 1893 caused many of the employes to be laid off by this house, he among the number, and he fell back on his old work of basket-making. He continued making grape baskets during the following fall, at Kirtland, Ohio, and returned to Akron on the first of the following October, determined to go into business for himself and be independent of the ups and down of more ambitious concerns. He had a little capital and this he invested in a small cigar store, on the site of the present magnificent new modern building.

With small capital, few resources and active competition, Mr. Long found the first three years hard ones to push through, but By working fifteen hours a day, and careful management, with honest and courteous treatment for every one, he built up a constantly increasing trade. He found it necessary, ere long, to increase his space by adding another room. Later, when it proved impossible to still further add to the building he occupied, as his business demanded, he resolved to purchase this piece of property then for sale, at the point of the intersection of Main and Howard Streets, and he acquired it in 1898. Its flatiron shape, 86 feet lying on Main Street and 92 feet on Howard Street, 60 feet wide at one end and 9 feet at the other, determined the name of the magnificent building, the erection of which was commenced in July, 1906.

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

In 1891 Mr. Long was married to Marion E. Taylor, and they have two children: Gertrude M. and Robert II. T.

Mr. Long is a 32nd degree Mason and belongs to the Blue Lodge, Chapter and Commandcry at Akron, and to Lake Erie Consistory and Al Koran Temple A. A. 0. N. M. S. at Cleveland. During his residence in Chicago he was very active in the order of the ) Sons of Veterans, and at one time was commanding officer of Camp No, 1. of that city.

As printed in Centennial history of Summit County, Ohio and representative citizens (1908). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.