Mogul This and Mogul That

Powerful "Moguls" of days gone by

Vintage image of a Mogul tractor  from dok1 

In 2013, the word "mogul" has a vaguely negative feel to it. We might speak of "shipping moguls" or "manufacturing moguls", meaning the powerful people who control those industries. But a hundred years ago, "mogul" was a positive word, often used as a brand name for powerful machines and equipment.

 Mogul Motor Trucks were manufactured in St. Louis and in Chicago.  The Mogul  Street Sprinkling Truck was probably made by that company. And certain large locomotives were called moguls.

Mogul 1629 locomotive. Image by tkksummers. Gene
Autry purchased this Mogul 1629 after it was retired
 from a long life of of service on the rails. It  was used
in several Western movies and shows. You may
remember seeing it on "Gunsmoke" or "Wyatt Earp."

Mogul tractors with kerosene engines were manufactured by the International Harvester Company of Chicago, Illinois, through 1924. (If you enjoy mechanical curiosities, watch this YouTube video:  Harry Henderson starting his old Mogul tractor.)

I've written several times on this blog about the hard-working Mogul Wagons that were manufactured in Hopkinsville, KY from the 1870s through 1925. Production was halted by a fire that destroyed the factory, but the Forbes Brothers sold their remaining inventory of Mogul wagons, wheels, axels, and other parts for another 25 years.

Moguls didn't always live up to the promise of their name. The Mogul Steamship Company is mainly remembered for a court case in England that concerned it. The Mogul Mining Company was declared a poor investment by a financial adviser of 1920.

How to look and feel like a Mogul yourself? Just light up a Mogul cigarette! (Ugh. I have a feeling they were terribly strong.)

The following definitions are from a dictionary of the period, The Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary of 1913

Mogul \Mo*gul"\, n. [From the Mongolian.]
1. A person of the Mongolian race.
2. (Railroad) A heavy locomotive for freight traffic, having three
pairs of connected driving wheels and a two-wheeled truck.

Mogul \Mo*gul"\, n.
A great personage; magnate; autocrat.

Related:
Mogul Wagons from Hopkinsville sold in Mississippi, North Carolina

Mogul Wagons Revisited

A short history and advertisements for Mogul Wagons

Yesterday, I did some research in the genealogy section of the Hopkinsville library for a Pennsylvania lady who is writing a book. A portion of the plot is set in Hopkinsville around 1890-1910, and the rest takes place elsewhere.

While I was looking through the 1897 and 1899 editions of Meacham's City Directory of Hopkinsville, I came across a couple of ads for Mogul Wagons. I photocopied and scanned them, and here they are, for visitors who are seeking information about Mogul Wagons.

Mogul Wagon Company history

A short summary of the Mogul Wagon Company's history appears in Gateway From The Past, Volume II: A Pictorial History of Hopkinsville and Christian County, Ky. Since 1865 by William T. Turner (published in Hopkinsville by Southern Printing, Inc., in 1981). I came across this while doing research for the lady's book, also!

Mr. Turner, our city/county historian, included the following facts in a caption he wrote for a 1909 photograph of the Mogul Wagon factory in Hopkinsville:

• The Mogul Wagon Company was organized in 1871 by J. K. & M. C. Forbes.


• The original factory was located on South Virginia Street between 10th & 11th .


• In 1906, a new factory opened on 21st Street between Harrison and Railroad Beltline.
  


• The Mogul Wagon Company was incorporated in 1908.


• The types of Mogul wagons included: "farm, log, mountain, platform, spring and dead axle coal and ice wagons, drays, floats and gun carriages." (According to Mr. Turner.)
  


• A fire on December 28, 1925, destroyed the large factory.


• The remaining inventory of wagons and spare parts were sold by the Forbes Hardware Company through 1951.


• After the factory was rebuilt, the Eastern Dark Fired Tobacco Growers Association purchased it, and it was finally dismantled in 1981.

The original Mogul Wagon factory must have been either on the lot now occupied by BB&T Bank or on the site of the medical building, just north of the War Memorial building on Virginia Street. The 1906 factory must have been located on 21st Street on property that is now owned by the Pennyrile Rural Electric Coop, just across the railroad tracks from Hopkinsville Milling.

This advertisement for Mogul Wagons can still be seen
on the back of an old building on Main St. in Hopkinsville.

Fire risks at a wagon factory

A wagon factory surely faced a high risk of fire. In the process of manufacturing, a great deal of sawdust and wood debris would have been created. In addition, quantities of lumber would have been warehoused waiting to be used. There was also bark debris from sawing logs, I assume.

The factory would have been as vulnerable to fire as any modern lumberyard or woodworking plant, but it would not have had the benefit of sprinkler systems, smoke alarms, or modern firefighting tools.

Read more about Mogul wagons on this blog:

Hopkinsville's Fire Station and Transportation Museum
More About Mogul Wagons
Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in 1907
Mogul Wagons

(Or, just click the Mogul Wagons label at the end of this post.)

Updated to correct a possible error about the building that currently occupies the site of the original Forbes Mfg. Co.

Technorati tags: old time wagons, , old farm wagon, antique wagon, old coal wagon, horse drawn wagons

Hopkinsville's Fire Station and Transportation Museum

Renovation of an old fire station is underway.

The clock tower on Hopkinsville's old fire station is looking very spiffy these days. It has fresh paint and perhaps even a new roof. It's a well-known landmark, sometimes used as a logo for Hopkinsville. I'm glad to see it looking so well.

The fire station and clock date back to 1924. The clock has been cleaned and repaired recently, and it's keeping good time on all four sides. Before its repair, it was seriously losing time.

The work on the clock tower is part of the renovation of the old fire station. It will eventually be opened as the Woody Winfree Fire and Transportation Museum.

Woody Winfree donated Hopkinsville Fire Engine No. 1, a 1928 La France to the museum several years ago, as well as other articles from his extensive collection of old fire-fighting equipment and memorabilia.

Regarding Winfree's donation:

The City of Hopkinsville originally purchased the truck in 1928 for $1 per pound. The $13,750 sticker price marked the greatest expenditure for fire equipment to that point by the city. It was the first truck in the Hopkinsville Fire Department built from the ground up solely as a fire engine. It was active for 40 years until it was declared surplus in 1968. Winfree brought it at that time.

Source: "A Herculean Task" by Matt Killebrew, Kentucky New Era, January 27, 2004 (Subscription may be required -- not sure.)

The La France had a cracked block when the article was written in 2004, but it was scheduled to undergo repair.

A Mogul Wagon will be displayed here. The museum also owns a 1926 pumper, another fire truck of unknown-to-me vintage, a 1909 Model 10 Buick, a restored Model T, a 1957 John Deere tractor, and a collection of antique gas pumps.

I walked by the fire station a few days ago and peeked inside. A couple of men were working on the lights. When one of them saw me taking photos of the old front doors, he invited me to come to the rear of the building and admire the new doors. They are replicas of the old door, and they look great.



He pointed out the openings in the ceiling where the firemen slid down poles, just like the story books always said they did. I asked about the corrugation of the concrete floor in front of the back door. He explained that when they came back from a fire run, they came through the back door, and the corrugation helped to clean the horses' feet and the wheels of the fire equipment.


The old fire station is located across the street from the Pennroyal Museum. It will be a nice addition to Hopkinsville. Mr. William Turner, our very knowledgable county historian is deeply involved in the project. Besides his natural interest and his professional duties, the renovation is taking place next door to his office.

A few weeks ago when I came out of the courthouse, I heard a loud, spluttering engine, and over the hill came Mr. Turner, driving an old fire truck down Main Street. It made me happy to see that. I'm sure it was pretty cool to be at the wheel, too.

Technorati tags: antique fire engines, fire station museum, antique town clock, historic building renovation

More about Mogul Wagons

Mogul Wagons and the Forbes House of Hopkinsville, KY

The Mogul Wagons emblem (at left) is included in the Founders Square mural near 9th and Main Streets in downtown Hopkinsville, KY.

I didn't know much about the history of Mogul Wagons, until a few days ago, when I received an e-mail from James T. Forbes. Dr. Forbes is a descendant of the family who manufactured the Mogul Wagon.

Until Dr. Forbes wrote to me, I did not fully understand why a Mogul wagon sits on the front porch of the former Fuqua-Hinton funeral home in Hopkinsville. Now I realize it is there because the house was built and owned for many years by the family who manufactured Mogul Wagons.

Dr. Forbes graciously agreed to allow me to publish the information he sent me about the Mogul Wagon company and the family who owned it. The following brief history is compiled from his e-mails.

I ran across the web site in which you described the Mogul Wagon sitting on the front porch of the Fuqua-Hinton funeral home. My family owned and operated the Mogul Wagon Co.

The wagon company, Mogul, was originally (starting in 1871) at 10th and Virginia St, [in Hopkinsville, KY] and moved to the beltline on Harrison between 18th and 21st in 1906.

It was destroyed by fire Dec. 28, 1925, and the parts were sold by Forbes Hardware until 1951. We used to burn the hubs in the fireplace when I was growing up -- they would probably bring a handsome sum today.

The wagons were advertised as "Easy-to-Pull, Hard-to-Break", "Strong Where the Strain Comes", and "Buy a Mogul and Will it to Your Grandson". It was but one of the family businesses which ran the spectrum from retail hardware, farm implements, groceries, jewelry, construction, etc.

They also built the house that is in the picture in 1905. My aunt, Annie L. Forbes Hancock, sold the house to the Fuquas in 1954. I visited the house many times before that and lived in it the last year before it was sold.

The house cost $50,000 to build in 1905 and was built by the brothers, James K. and M.C. Forbes. M.C. was my great grandfather and was also known in town as "Mr. Bud".

My father practiced medicine in Hopkinsville from 1953 until 1986 when he passed away. I no longer have any direct connection with Hopkinsville but I lived there from 1953 until I went away to college.

When I was growing up, I had constant reminders of the family business as they built most of the schools in Hopkinsville including the old HHS on Walnut St. and Virginia St. and West Side schools. They also built the old part of Jennie Stuart hospital.

Source: E-mails received from Dr. James T. Forbes in July 2007. Reprinted with permission.

Here are three additional bits of historic information about Mogul Wagons that I've gleaned from Google's book search

1. The following is quoted from the Handbook of Kentucky, by Hubert Vreeland, Kentucky Bureau of Agriculture, Labor, and Statistics, published in 1908: "Several manufacturing establishments [in Hopkinsville, Kentucky] have recently greatly enlarged -— Forbes & Bro., now Forbes' Manufacturing Company; lumber planing mills, extensive manufactory of Mogul wagons, employing some 250 hands... "

2. According to The Scroll of Phi Delta Theta, by Phi Delta Theta Fraternity, 1909,
James M. Forbes, '06, had been elected vice-president and manager of the Mogul Wagon Co., which had just built a $300,000 factory at Hopkinsville, Ky.

3. In America's Munitions, 1917-1918: Report of Benedict Crowell, the Assistant Secretary of War, Mr. Crowell writes of the demands that World War I made upon America's wagon makers.

The first military order for wagons exhausted the entire nation's supply of air-dried lumber. To meet the military need, wagons were constructed of kiln-dried lumber for the first time ever. The War Department contributed to the cost of building the kilns.

As the war progressed, the wagon makers were at full production. Furniture makers were called upon to help produce spare parts and automobile makers to produce wheels.

By Armistice Day (November 11, 1918), America's wagon makers had produced 110,000 wagons. The Mogul Wagon Company of Hopkinsville, KY, is included in a list of "prominent wagon companies engaged in this work."

Mogul Wagon on the porch
of the Forbes House, Hopkinsville, KY

Related Prairie Bluestem articles:
Mogul Wagons
Mogul Wagons Revisited

Try the "Mogul Wagons" label at end of this post.

Technorati tags: Hopkinsville Kentucky history, Hopkinsville KY history, Mogul Wagons, Forbes family, World War I

Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in 1907

Hopkinsville, 100 years ago

The following paragraphs about Hopkinsville, Kentucky, were written 100 years ago for the Handbook of Kentucky ("The Seventeenth Biennial Report of the Bureau of Agriculture").

I've added some relevant photos from past Prairie Bluestem posts. The notes below each photo are linked to the post the photo originally came from.

It's interesting to think how advanced Hopkinsville was in 1907, when many homesteaders of the Great Plains were still proving up on the land they obtained through the 1904 Kincaid Act.

HOPKINSVILLE
Revised 1907 by Chas. M. Meacham, Mayor

Hopkinsville, the county seat of Christian County, KY, is two hours travel by Louisville & Nashville railroad from Evansville Ind., and Nashville, Tenn., and seven hours from Louisville.

The Louisville & Nashville and Illinois Central railroads intersect here, traversing the best coal, grain and tobacco lands in western Kentucky.

Platform of the L & N Depot

The white graded schools, three buildings, have 1400 pupils; colored public schools, 1300 pupils. Two flourishing colleges, Bethel Female, for young ladies and South Kentucky, for both sexes, and other private schools and also a college for colored people. There are ten white and seven colored churches, representing the leading denominations.

Hopkinsville has one national, three State and one savings bank; capital, $380,000, deposits July 1, $1,800,000. Seven tobacco warehouses, four stemmeries and rehandling houses, branch factories of two of the largest tobacco companies in the world; wagon factory, lawn swing factory, three cigar factories, and one canning factory.

An old vacant tobacco warehouse

We have a handsome opera house and a brick tabernacle for large gatherings, seating 5,000 people.

Hopkinsville has water works, gas works, electric lights and an automatic alarm system, the best in the State. The waterworks for fire, by pressure, throws two streams 100 feet. We have also a wagon, two ice, brick and lime factories, large planing mill, four merchant flouring mills turning out 2000 barrels a day, a steam laundry and dye works and two telephone exchanges.

The Bassett Building, in downtown Hopkinsville, KY

The hotels are excellent and unsurpassed anywhere in the State. We have prosperous home building and loan associations, six newspapers and the handsomest business houses in Western Kentucky.

Western Asylum for the Insane, with a population of 1,300, is located within one mile of the city and spends $150,000 annually.

A belt line railway has just been completed through the manufacturing district.

Hopkinsville Milling Company, since 1907

The dry goods and grocery trade amounts to $250,000 annually.

The city is famous for culture, good order and healthfulness. New manufactories are free from city taxes for five years. There are over twenty miles of excellent macadamized streets, 110 miles of free turnpikes, extending into fine farming sections, and at least eight miles of sewerage system.

Source: Handbook of Kentucky by Hubert Vreeland, Kentucky Bureau of Agriculture, Labor and Statistics. Published in 1908 by the Globe Printing Company of Louisville, KY.


Related posts:
Mogul Wagons
More About Mogul Wagons
Signs of Days Goneby
Peace Park in Hopkinsville
Prejudice and Segregation
Also check the "Local history" tag below.

Technorati tags: Hopkinsville KY history, Kentucky history, 1907

Mogul Wagons

Lumber and logging wagons produced in Hopkinsville, KY

The old wagon that sits on the front porch of the former Fuqua-Hinton Funeral Home in Hopkinsville is a Mogul Wagon. Hopefully, they have it chained down and padlocked. This beautiful old house which sits just south of First Methodist Church is for sale, but I don't know if the wagon goes with the house or not.

Here's a closer look at the wagon. Mogul Wagons were once manufactured in Hopkinsville. If you look through the old wagon catalog at this link, you'll know as much about them as I do. I have not been able to find any other information about them online.

The catalog shows lumber and logging wagons that don't have a box on them like this wagon does. It mentions that the axles and spokes are made of hickory. Hickory wood was used because it has a high tensile strength. Indians used it for bows; pioneers used it for ax handles.

White oak is also specifically mentioned as a material used in the wagon. It's another strong wood that holds fasteners well and doesn't rot easily. I am sure that the white oak and hickory used in these wagons was harvested from the forests in Christian County and the surrounding area.

The Mogul emblem is part of the Founders Square mural in downtown Hopkinsville.



Related post:
More About Mogul Wagons
Mogul Wagons Revisited

Or, see the "Mogul Wagons" label at the end of this post.

Signs of Days Goneby

Historic buildings in Hopkinsville, KY

I took these photos today in downtown Hopkinsville. The old advertising signs for the Forbes Mfg. Co., Mogul wagons, buggies, garden seeds, etc. are painted on the east side of one of the taller downtown buildings. I think the building was part of the Cayce Yost department store complex, and apparently it belonged to the Forbes Brothers before that.

Cayce Yost (where draymen should ring for service at the back loading dock) thrived on Main Street for decades. In the early 1990's when we moved to Christian County, the Cayce Yost store was in its death throes. I bought a stove-top coffee percolator at the going-out-of-business sale.