Encyclopedia Dubuque
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DUBUQUE LARD-OIL, SOAP, AND CANDLE FACTORY
DUBUQUE LARD-OIL, SOAP, AND CANDLE FACTORY. The Dubuque Lard-Oil, Soap and Candle Factory, owned and operated by F. M. Pleins and James Beach, composing the commercial firm of Pleins & Beach, began business on October 22, 1855, under the name of F. M. Pleins & Co. with three employees.
By 1858, the firm's name was changed to Pleins & Beach and business increased so rapidly that improvements were completed on a two-story stone factory proper, 136x55 feet, with an addition used for warehouse purposes, 50x40 feet; the whole costing about $16,000. The buildings were located in the square bounded by Locust and Dodge STREETS, having a frontage of 417 feet on the former street, with a depth of 300 feet on Dodge street.
In 1911 the force required to work the factory averages from seven to ten employees, at a total weekly cost of from $100 to $150. The articles manufactured included lard-oil, tallow candles and soaps ranging in quality from the common domestic to the choicer grades. The firm annually produced upward of ten thousand boxes of soap of the following brands: White Castile, Legal Tender, Peerless, Royal, Blue, Key City, Imperial, German and Family; from three thousand to thirty-five hundred summer-pressed and molded candles, and from three to five hundred barrels of extra winter-strained lard-oil, employing eight presses. The soap was sold in Dubuque and the western states with annual revenue of at least $50,000.
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Source:
Oldt, Franklin T. History of Dubuque County