The infamous tunnel
entrance was exposed as the Exeter Tag Factory was demolished. The tunnel
was rumored to be a shortcut for Charles Smith, the index tag inventor, to
travel between his factory and home. In reality, it just went under the
alley to the Quonset to the west where the village’s original electrical system
was housed.
The
skyline of downtown Exeter has changed drastically with the removal of the
Smith Index Tag Factory.
It took several days of
demolition for the proud old Smith Index Tag building to safely be removed from
downtown Exeter. Here the rear of the building has been demolished.
By Leesa K. Bartu
The Smith Index Tag Factory has dominated the Exeter
landscape since the late 1800’s was demolished in the last month.
The building, now owned by the Village of Exeter, was
donated to the village in July of 2015 by Seth Jones. Jones had purchased
the building from brothers, Lester and Gaylord Becker in 2008.
During the heyday of the factory it employed over 70 plus
those who did piecework in their homes. The tags were nothing like tags
we describe today. Instead, they were part of an adjustable index tag
system that were designed by Charles C. Smith, son of Dr. H. G. Smith the
founder of Exeter.
To begin with, the corner building, which sits at the intersection
of Exeter Avenue and Seneca, was owned by H. G. Smith and housed his First
National Bank from 1889 – 1898. Smith worked in his father’s bank and invented
the tags to help in his job. Once the tags were spotted by a businessman,
Smith was asked to create more for the business community.
Smith had to find a resource for the perfect metal composite
which would withstand daily usage. Smith began manufacturing in the factory in
1896 once all of his materials were in place and the business expanded quickly
from there. Smith secured the patent on the product.
He began manufacturing in the director’s room of his
father’s bank. The Fillmore County Story describes the
product Smith invented, “The tabs are used to index books and card
systems. Some, made wholly of steel, are called Signals or Guides.
The signals may be either plain or printed with months, numbers, or
letters. The guides have insertable paper labels protected by a celluloid
covering.”
This is Exeter quotes the Fillmore County Story
noting the popularity of the Smith products, “At one time almost all of the
signaling items used in the world were made in Exeter. Although
competitors arose, the Exeter factory long remained the acknowledged leader for
quality signaling.”
In fact, the plant quickly outgrew the both the room they
were in and soon the building and started expanding into the adjacent
building. Along with physical expansion the business also evolved as
employees along with Smith began to design and build their own machinery.
Also added in Smith’s stable of products was the gummed
label which was not removable. Nesbit Whitmore, a 57 year employee at the
factory, invented the machine which created the gummed index by stripping out
rolls of cloth and pressboard.
Smith’s factory not only provided employment for the
community, he also brought utilities to the Fillmore County village. In
1908 he opened his “Electric Light and Power Plant.”
The This is Exeter book reports that Smith brought “A
coal-fired steam power plant that furnished Exeter and its citizens with
electricity after the turn of the century.”
The power plant was quite a newsworthy event. This
is Exeter quotes an article written in 1907 by a Mr. Settle who may have
been a roving reporter for The Nebraska Signal, “The tag factory was
installing a large new oil engine. It was being taken from the railroad
station to the factory piece by piece, so large are its dimensions. It
took six horses to draw one wheel on skids from the tracks to the factory
door. The monster wheels were then hoisted by pulleys until they stood
edgewise when the men rolled them through the doors into the building.
One of the wheels weighed about six thousand pounds. This engine will be
used for power at this factory for running the electric dynamo for lighting the
city. This will give Exeter night and day current.”
In 1910 the Tag Factory was identified by a brand new
electric sign on top of the two story building. It boasted 187 tungsten
lamps.
While cleaning out the building before demolition, Exeter
Village Maintenance Supervisor John Mueller found the blueprints of the Exeter
water tower, commissioned by Smith. The east side of Exeter Avenue
downtown burned in August of 1907 and the lack of water service was
lamented. The town founders had water system plans drawn up in 1906 and
by the fire of 1909 they were in place and kept the late night fire from
spreading beyond a few downtown buildings.
In 1928 the water tower was erected in Exeter and Smith
contributed to the construction costs and made sure the tower met his
specifications. It had an inner tank that was to be used to furnish water
to the sprinkler system in the tag factory.
Gradually machinery replaced employees and after Smith’s
death in 1951 the factory was sold several times. Smith left his holdings
and interests to Doane College.
His granddaughter, Barb Jansen, still lives in Exeter.
Her mother, was one of Smith’s four adopted daughters. Just nine months
after Jansen was born her father passed away. She, along with her sisters
and her mother, moved back in with Smith in the beautiful home he built in
Exeter. Smith died when she was about four but they continued to live in
his home. Jansen doesn’t have a whole lot of memories of him.
She recalls finding some of his business paperwork when she
and her sisters were cleaning out the house, “He wrote everything down.
He was very careful with how he spent his money. I think it came out of
him growing up in the depression era.”
Jansen didn’t recall a lot of the details of Smith’s estate
but she knew he had a fondness for Doane University. “Most of his estate
went back to the Doane campus. They named the men’s dormitory, Smith
Hall, after him. He met his wife at Doane and thought so much of Doane
back then. It’s too bad he didn’t think of the future of Exeter a little
more.”
She has a few mementos of the different style of tags that
she holds on to of her grandfather’s, “He employed a lot of people in town and
it was great thing for the town back then. He really helped the community
in that way.”
Smith, in addition to his business interests, ran for State
senate and served one term in the Nebraska State Senate in 1911.
After Smith’s death and subsequent dispersal of his assets
the still successful factory was moved in 1962 from Exeter with little notice
to employees or management. John Tauriella, whose father Frank, was the
manager at the time, was a small child when this happened. He recalled,
“When they moved the Tag Factory out of Exeter it was because it was doing so
well and not because it was failing. They took a good business that was
thriving and moved it to Chicago.”
Tauriella’s sister, Judy Hansen, has wonderful memories of
the time her Dad was the factory manager. “I used to go in a lot, I rode
the elevator a lot. I remember the sounds of the machinery making the
metal index tabs. I can still hear the machinery going. It was
exciting to me to watch the tabs come out a finished product.”
When the business was moved it was a big blow to the
community. Hansen remembers her Dad being offered a job to go with the
factory to Chicago, “It was a good time in his life, (when he was the Tag
Factory manager) he didn’t like that it was leaving. He was offered a job
to go there (Chicago) but he didn’t want to move his family to the city.
He grew up in Brooklyn and knew what it was like to grow up in a big city and
didn’t want that for his family.”
Unfortunately, the manufacturing plant was never again to
function again and was eventually bought by the Becker’s to store their car
collection.
Jones purchased the building to store some of the old car
parts he bought in the Midwest. He purchased the original tag factory
only, with the Becker’s retaining the Modern Products building for their
storage until after the death of Gaylord in the building in March of
2012. The Modern Products building, according to Hansen, was where the
offices were located in the later years of operation.
There were always rumors of a tunnel that ran from the
factory to Smith’s home about four blocks away but Jansen confirmed that it was
not true. The doorway that might have triggered the rumor was in the
basement in the same room with a very large old air compressor. There was
a tunnel there that could have possibly gone under the alley to a Quonset
building behind the factory to the west.
The future of the property is uncertain. The
demolition project included the Tag Factory, the Modern Products building and
the building which sits between the Village Office and the Legion. It was
also donated to the Village by the Becker family.
The village recently held a revitalization meeting and
several options were discussed for the large empty areas. Some options
that were discussed included leaving the areas as downtown green space, a new
village office, library and technology center or the possible sale of the
property for economic development.
Author’s note: Valuable resources for this story were This
is Exeter and The Fillmore County Story along with local
historian Lonnie Shafer.
