A little family history

Darren Wright

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We were over at my wife's aunt house last night looking through a photo album she put together about my wife's grand mother. On one section of the album she had a catalog for a company that was started by my wife's great-great grandfather and his brothers, the Kaudy Manufacturing Company of Grand Rapids, WI (now Wisconson Rapids). They manufactured saloon bars, ice boxes, chairs, cigar displays, etc. for Saloons. Her great-great grandfather eventually split off and started his own company building furniture, bank teller windows, and saloon equipment as well, but on a smaller scale.

I only had my cell phone, so some of the pics aren't the clearest. This is her great-great grandfather with one of the bars they built. Below is the cover of the catalog and link to the other pages of it.


Other catalog pages: http://picasaweb.google.com/libertystainedglass/KaudyMfg#

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The company started in another town in 1878, but later moved to Grand Rapids about 1904 (best estimate) as it was a rail road town and they could ship all over the country. They did well until prohibition, but had to close the company around 1934. My wife's great-great grandfather then opened his own business around that time and did very well doing furniture, bank teller windows, and such.

I looked last night and found two pieces on ebay that looked like their work and both were in the WI area, but one was $19,000 and the other about $36,000. Unless we win the lottery, we'll have to admire their work from the pictures. :) It definitely sparks an interest though. Told my wife I'll have to start visiting bars...you know...to do research. :D :rofl: :rofl:

Vaughn, I think the CNC was named Bill, Matt, or Gerard. ;) Might have been Matt Jr. or Matt II though, the second generation of CNC at the time.
 
Darren, those were great pictures. Thanks for sharing.​

You should try and get them to have the whole lot scanned and stored digitally.​

I have done that for many of our family shots going back to the black and white versions. That way they are preserved regardless of lifes mishaps like floods, hurricanes etc.​

Would make for a great website, when you see the work of old.​

I like the marketing. $16.50 for a dozen chairs. The competition was $12 to $14 with the statement "Do not class this chair with cheap trash offered at $12 to $14":rofl::rofl::rofl:

$2 bucks difference over a dozen chairs and it made a difference:eek::D

Wonder what a beer cost. And what a bar fight would cost when the place got busted up. Boy if you could barely afford a beer and started a fight that broke a few chairs you sure were in deep in debt after that night out.:D:rofl::rofl:

I love these old bars, looked all over my computer for a reasonable image of one downtown Toronto that i was going to take Mr. Merlau to had he stopped over for more than a few hours.:D but could not find one. Sure i had it though.:( They have this large old clock right at the top center and then a mirror on the back and shelving round the sides with a huge copper pipe on the counter where the beer taps are mounted.​

You had me thinking of that show "Cheers" and thier pub. :thumb:

I love a good bar and a night out with some friends in a pub.:);):thumb:
 
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The bar is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. It is simply amazing. The size of the room that it fit in must have also been massive
 
Very psyched today, I had asked my wife's aunt if they could do a high-res scan of the catalog for me. To my surprise, they handed me the catalog and told us we were the keepers of it from now on. Need to do some research on paper preservation and figure out what things to do and what not to do. I will be doing a scan of it for safe keeping, but anyone have any advice on preservation? It's got some damage and lots of wear, would like to just keep it from getting any worse.

BTW...checkout the link below on page 112 & page 113, one of their bars is at that pub...

http://books.google.com/books?id=78...=0CCwQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=kaudy mfg co&f=false
 
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Makes you wonder how they got that bar up and onto that wagon... it's massive and must weight several hundred pounds... no sign of a crane type fixture in the picture... maybe all those men hoisted it by hand ???
 
Makes you wonder how they got that bar up and onto that wagon... it's massive and must weight several hundred pounds... no sign of a crane type fixture in the picture... maybe all those men hoisted it by hand ???

If you scroll down from the picture, it says "He was a cabinetmaker and made the large bar front on the wagon."
No telling how it was unloaded.

At first I pictured sliding it out on skids as the picture looks as though the wagon is backed up to what today would be called a loading dock. But your thought of them all hoisting it up could work as well I imagine, after a few glasses of liquid steroids :thumb: :D
 
This is a great story. I can see the Kaudy Wright Manufacturing Company est. 1878 rising from the ashes. Purveyors of fine pub fixtures for the home saloon. Custom kegerator enclosures and tap handles. A second career in the making. :thumb::D
 
This is a great story. I can see the Kaudy Wright Manufacturing Company est. 1878 rising from the ashes. Purveyors of fine pub fixtures for the home saloon. Custom kegerator enclosures and tap handles. A second career in the making. :thumb::D

Ted an Paul, I like the way you think. ;)

Ken, thanks for the research. I'll do some more digging.



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Great story, Darren!

I don't think they had plywood in those days. ...

Here's a blurb from Wiki:

"In 1797 Samuel Bentham applied for patents covering several machines to produce veneers. In his patent applications, he described the concept of laminating several layers of veneer with glue to form a thicker piece – the first description of what we now call plywood.[SUP][1][/SUP] Samuel Bentham was a British naval engineer with many shipbuilding inventions to his credit. Veneers at the time of Bentham were flat sawn, rift sawn or quarter sawn; i.e. cut along or across the log manually in different angles to the grain and thus limited in width and length.


About fifty years later Immanuel Nobel, father of Alfred Nobel, realized that several thinner layers of wood bonded together would be stronger than one single thick layer of wood ;[SUP][citation needed][/SUP] understanding the industrial potential of laminated wood he invented the rotary lathe.[SUP][citation needed][/SUP]


There is little record of the early implementation of the rotary lathe and the subsequent commercialization of plywood as we know it today, but in its 1870 edition, the French dictionary Robert describes the process of rotary lathe veneer manufacturing in its entry Déroulage.[SUP][2][/SUP] One can thus presume that rotary lathe plywood manufacture was an established process in France in the 1860s. Plywood was introduced into the United States in 1865[SUP][3][/SUP] and industrial production started shortly after. In 1928, the first standard-sized 4 ft by 8 ft (1.2 m by 2.4 m) plywood sheets were introduced in the United States for use as a general building material.[SUP][1][/SUP]"
 
That's some great history on plywood Bill. I know I've seen it used in some pieces from 1890 or there about, but doubt it was from a commercial/standard source, probably done in the shop that made the furniture.


So I started reading the book "Bottoms Up: A Toast to Wisconsin's Historic Bars & Breweries" (http://www.amazon.com/Bottoms-Up-Wisconsins-Historic-Breweries/dp/087020498X).


Reading on the history and to summarize. Wisconsin had so many brewers that they had to compete to get the saloons to sell their beer. They were originally getting about $8 a barrel, but with the increase of competition, it dropped down to about $4. Of that $4.00, $3.88 had to be paid to the federal taxes setup on alchohol, which was to help pay for the Civil War (30 years later still). So the brewers were only making $.12 a barrel. The breweries just kept losing money as the saloons would buy based on price. As soon as the salesman thought he had a deal with the saloon owner, someone would come in and offer a better deal the next month.


So the brewery's started to supply full bar setups (a saloon in a box), with items like in the catalog (even the building), with "easy" payments and agreements that the saloon owner could only sell their beer, which made the saloon fixture business very lucrative. Her G-G-Grandfather's business was only a small company in the scheme of the whole thing.


Prohibition eventually took hold and many of the businesses went under.
 
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