Economic History of Cameron
HOUND DOG TRAIL: THE ECONOMIC HISTORY OF CAMERON
Railroads, radios, hangers, tornadoes, cheese, insulation,
gunstocks, convicts, even brassieres have played a role in the
colorful chronicle of Cameron’s economy. The twin threads of
agriculture and transportation have continued to weave through
the evolution of Cameron commerce through the Civil War, Great
Depression, and Cyberspace Revolution. If you think your
digital PCS is groundbreaking, consider the shock to an 1850’s
Cameron farmer, at a time when the pinnacle of power was a draft
horse, upon seeing his first locomotive.
Cameron’s first entrepreneur was a chap named Isaac Baldwin who,
in 1830, established a post office. But, since the Elvis stamp
was more than a century off and the mail business was a mite
slow, he sold whiskey for 25 cents a gallon...and water to weary
travelers at a dime a jug. Perrier had nothing on this
capitalist. For good measure, he added a “house of
entertainment”, as Cameron’s 1955 Centennial book called it, and
fathered 16 children. Quite a busy fellow this Baldwin.
Early settlers arrived by stage coach and covered wagon over
Hound Dog Trail, much of which is now U.S. 36. A ticket on the
daily Hannibal to St. Joseph stage route cost $16 plus $4 for
“living expenses” which, presumably, included some of Baldwin’s
fare. The trip took 48 hours.
But
the big kick in early Cameron’s economic pants came on rails and
credit goes to a Cameron duo. In 1847, George Smith, who was
later elected Missouri Lt. Governor, successfully petitioned the
legislature for a Hannibal to St. Joseph rail line, but
financial shortcomings halted the venture. Salvation came from
another Cameronite, Colonel M.F. Tiernan, whose volunteer
engineers surveyed the entire 206-mile route in 80 days
stimulating the sale of railroad stock, and the Hannibal & St.
Joseph Railroad was in business. From St. Joseph, mail
continued west on the celebrated Pony Express, which lasted only
a few months until rail and the telegraph overtook it.
In
1859, with a population of 100, the first load of livestock was
shipped by rail from Cameron. By 1881 the census had grown to
3,000 and records show 300 carloads of livestock a year
originating in Cameron. In 1871 a second rail line, the
Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific also extended a line to
Cameron, and the city’s later claim as Crossroads of the Nation
had its beginning.
Cameron’s growth as a retail and commercial trade center
suffered a huge blow when a disastrous 1871 fire destroyed 45
buildings including most of the downtown and left one-third of
the town’s residents homeless. The blaze began in a livery
stable.
For
47 years Cameron was a college town. The Cameron Institute, a
private, post-secondary school, opened in 1883. When acquired
by Methodists it became Missouri Wesleyan College, which
survived a 1919 fire, but not the Great Depression, and it
closed in 1930. One of its buildings served as Cameron High
School until the 1960’s.
Cameron had its share of manufacturers with a 1909 skirt factory
among the earliest. Glove production occurred early in the
century in the spacious basement of the Musser mansion, built by
Cameron’s second mayor who was tried three times for assaulting
a widowed teacher in a case the local paper called “Rich, Rare
and Racy Proceedings”.
Cameron got on the communications bandwagon when the Dixie Radio
factory opened in 1926, and the garment trade continued until
1931 when the Grant Apron factory burned. From 1938 until the
1950’s, as many as 75 women produced brassieres in the Hollywood
Maxwell factory. It seems all manufacturing was called
“factory” back then. The Clover Hill Cheese factory had a
capacity of some 700 cheeses while the Chapman Ice Cream plant
produced edible delicacies from 1904 to 1926.
Cameron’s penchant for making things continued in the 1950’s
with Garrison & Son’s barrel stave factory; the Thompson
Company’s “crystal holders” (just what they held is not clear);
the Campbell Broom factory; and the Dildine Bridge Company which
turned out 300 tons of steel a month. In 1950 N-W Electric
began providing power to eight rural cooperatives.
The
weather is responsible for Cameron’s most tenacious industry.
In 1892, the fear of Mother Nature brought about creation of a
regional tornado protection company for farmers which grew into
today’s Cameron Insurance Companies now employing 170. Such is
loyalty to this stalwart that tenure now averages over 12
years. In 1964 the company hit a pair of milestones: It bought
48 acres for a new headquarters and acquired one of the first
IBM computers in the entire Midwest.
From
the rail crossroads of the 1870’s came a new vehicular
juncture--one of concrete. In the 1960’s a pair of major
automotive transportation accomplishments would redirect
Cameron’s economic future. U.S. 36 was re-routed to the north
edge of town becoming 4-lanes while the new Interstate-35
brushed the city’s eastern flanks. Some downtown merchants
bemoaned the demotion of U.S. 69 while others embraced
opportunity at the New Crossroads. Today over 40,000 vehicles a
day pass through the namesake intersection.
The
next industrial boom occurred in the late 1960’s when Mayor Roy
Eagan and his troupe ventured to Ithaca, NY to persuade the
Ithaca Firearms Company to locate a gunstock manufacturing
facility in Cameron. The firm employed as many as 80 and
specialized in creating walnut rifle stocks. Product liability
issues forced the company out of business in the early 1980’s.
Following default on industrial bonds, the City acquired the
building and, after several years of vacancy, Clinco Industries
found a home therein providing contract packaging services,
recycling processing, and maintenance for Missouri highway rest
stops.
The
other 60’s newcomer was Rockwool Insulation which built a
130,000-square-foot plant just southwest of town along the
then-active rail line. The company turned three carloads of
iron ore slag a day into fluffy, non-combustible insulation and
employed 135 before the construction slow-down of the late 70’s
forced it to close. Rumors of Rockwool starting up again every
six months or so proved only wishful, and the building
languished for over a decade. After years of negotiations with
the Colorado-based parent of Rockwool, the City acquired the
by-then-dilapidated structure and sought a tenant. A tiny ad
for the building in the Kansas City Star placed by a local real
estate broker caught the eye of a KC coat hanger maker, and in
1992 Midwest Hanger began churning out a million hangers a day
in Cameron, plus thousands of hog rings, which are actually
industrial staples. Customers included cleaners, uniform
companies and garment makers. From a start of 25 staff,
Midwest’s Cameron plant employed over 100 and earned Small
Business of the Year honors in 1996 from MoKan Development,
Inc. Midwest became the third largest producer of wire hangers
worldwide. In 2002 Midwest Hanger was acquired by CHC
Industries of Palm Harbor Florida which consolidated Midwest’s
Kansas City and Cameron plants to Cameron. A year later,
however, in the face of intense foreign steel competition, CHC
closed the Cameron plant as well as one of its other
facilities. Shortly thereafter, CHC declared bankruptcy.
One
of today’s buzzwords is the term Virtual Headquarters, and
Cameron has one. It began in 1980 when a pair of entrepreneurs,
TWA mechanic John Riead and Ken Raffety, a loan manager, formed
Rieadco after inventing a lighted fishing float called the Night
Bobby. While production continues today in Independence, the
firm’s administrative and office functions remain in Cameron.
Popular Science magazine reported on the device in 1988
saying it was visible for 200 feet. Rieadco has since added
fluorescent daytime bobbers, lighted bath toys, eyeglass
retainers, and its newest product, Brite Wheels, which screw
onto bike and auto valve stems. Rieadco sells over a million
units yearly at Wal-Mart, K-Mart and stores in five foreign
countries.
And
then came prisons.
A
few years ago, a Kansas City TV news feature dubbed Cameron the
“Town that Loves Prisons” in deference to its pair of state
corrections institutions. Love them or not, Cameronites’ regard
for their houses of incarceration can best be described by
events of 1996 when voters opted for a 3/8-cent sales tax in
order to fund a $3 million sewage plant upgrade to handle a
second prison...by a margin of over 80 percent.
At a meeting in Buckner, Missouri, which was then considering
entering the race for a state prison, the printed program listed
“Cameron Video” which was to be presented by prison opponents
after a day taping numerous, negatively-opined Cameron
residents. But when the Big Event came, the MC announced that
the video would not be shown after all. It seems not a single
vocal Cameron prison opponent could be found.
To
explain we must refer to those bleak early 80’s when both of
Cameron’s manufacturers closed. Northwest Missouri banks
collapsed. Courthouses began opening only four days a week.
The effects of the Soviet grain embargo were widespread. Banks
would not loan money to farmers. Farm liquidations hit an
all-time high. Chasing smokestacks to combat unemployment was
futile…companies were closing, not expanding. Economic sage Gib
Keith of N-W Electric called a meeting to suggest an alternate
economic path; one of institutional pursuit--for a proposed
state veterans home. But, alas, Gib reported, funding for such
a facility would be years away. Amid groans of disappointment
Gib produced a magazine article which proclaimed that Missouri
was considering construction of a new prison. “I wonder,”
pondered Gib, “if we should go after that?”
Sixteen years and two prisons later, the Missouri Veterans Home
at Cameron admitted its first resident in 2002.
Originally
written for Cameron Newspapers’ “Progress” edition in 2000 and
updated.
