Gaar, Scott & Co.

The factory of Gaar, Scott & Co. had its beginning, in 1836, in what was known to Richmond's pioneers as the Spring Foundry, located on the site of the present large plant and removed in 1836 to make room for the machine shop. Spring Foundry was so named because the water supply that furnished the motive power for this primitive enterprise was obtained from springs. The first proprietor of Spring Foundry was Isaac E. Jones, who used the building principally for a stove foundry. In 1839 it passed into the hands of Jesse M. and John J. Hutton. Among the operatives were Jonas Gaar, machinist; Abram Gaar, carpenter and millwright; J. M. Gaar, machinist, and William G. Scott, molder. These mechanics assisted in bringing out the first thresher ever built in Indiana. This machine was known as a "chaff piler" or "groundhog" thresher, which simply threshed the wheat and was operated by horse power. These machines were first put on the market in 1841 and continued to be the principal product of the factory up to 1848, at which time they developed an improved grain separator, which threshed the wheat from the shock and separated it from the straw which was deposited on the ground to be "bucked" away In 1849 these pioneers in the threshing machine industry bough the factory from the Huttons and organized the firm of A. Gaar & Co. Under their able management this infant industry soon outgrew its swaddling clothes. In 1870, twenty-one years after the Gaars took control, its majority was celebrated by incorporation under the name of Gaar, Scott & Co. with Abram Gaar, president; J. M. Gaar, vice-president, and William G. Scott, secretary and treasurer. On the death of Abram Gaar, in 1894, J. M. Gaar succeeded to the presidency of the company. The present officers (November, 1911) are: Howard Campbell, president and general manager, who succeeded J. M. Gaar at his death, in 1900; S. S. Strattan, Jr., secretary, who succeeded William G. Scott, deceased in 1897; Frank Land, first vice-president; William H. Campbell, second vice-president, and Charles H. Land, treasurer. The early captains of industry who founded this successful manufacturing enterprise, and their successors of the modern school of business, have always kept it at the head of Richmond's splendid manufactories and among the very first in its line in the United States. Over 600 men find steady employment in their well equipped factory and their total annual pay-roll is about $450,000. Threshers, traction and portable engines are their principal product, including large steam plowing engines, but they also build clover hullers, saw mills and straw bruisers, the last for export only. Their trade, which was at first local and amounted to only a few thousand dollars a year, has expanded until, as their announcements say, "Gaar-Scott threshing machinery goes wherever straw grain grows." In the wheat belts of Canada and Mexico, their machinery is as well known as in the United States, and they enjoy a growing export trade in South America, Egypt, Russia, and other European countries.

Source: "Memoirs of Wayne County and the city of Richmond, Indiana" ⁶⁶⁹