South Monroe Lowell Cutter Company
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Lowell Cutter Company
South Monroe The Lowell Cutter Company was founded by Robert Flanagan and A. J. Peckham in 1886. The Cutter Company buildings stretched from South Monroe westward to the Flat River. All of the buildings were painted red with white trim. Waterpower was delivered from the Flat River under Main Street to the factory. The moving water flowed over turbines connected to belts that powered the tools. The factory produced wooden bodies for horse drawn sleighs, buggies, delivery wagons and surreys, up to 200 per day. This factory became Lowell’s largest industry and the country’s largest manufacturer of cutter and sleigh woods, producing thirty thousand bodies annually in hundreds of styles by 1909. Wheels, runners, upholstery and paint were added at other locations. Then came the invention of the horseless carriage, the day of automobiles had arrived. The Lowell Cutter Company tried to enter the automobile market by building the Lowell Auto Body plant on Main Street in 1909. They manufactured wooden auto bodies for Austin, Dort-Durant and Buick. However, auto bodies made of metal soon prevailed over those made of wood. The Cutter Company/Lowell Auto Body went out of business in 1925. These buildings were sold to King Milling Company for storage and an animal feed grinding mill. Museum Curator Luanne Kaeb remembers hauling orange gravity wagons of corn to this mill as a teenager about 1970. The last building along Monroe Street was demolished in 1983. Images: The boss, Mr. Peckham, is looking out of the window, 1904.. Lowell Cutter Company, map 1910. Notice the Tail Race-water diversion channel. Water was channeled under Main Street to the mill then out the race and back into the River. King Milling Company, Chicken & Cow Feed Mixing, map 1938. View of Lowell Cutter Co. from the Flat River looking east, c. 1908 View along South Monroe Street in 1979. The final use of the building was to grind livestock feed. |
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