This Old Shoe Factory in WI used to make 500 pair of shoes a day
Beals and Torrey Shoe Company, Watertown Wisconsin
The Beals and Torrey Shoe Co. factory is one of the two buildings remaining that housed the leading manufacturing concern in Watertown for over 40 years. The building is associated with a period of innovation and rapid growth of a company which by 1917 had become "the leading industrial plant in Watertown." In that year it employed 100 people and disbursed the largest payroll in the city, a position which the shoe factory held through 1954.
The Beals Torrey Shoe Co. began in 1867 when two young Civil War soldiers, Ezra Beals and I. G. Mann, stopped over in Milwaukee on their way home to Massachusetts. They were impressed by the rapidly growing town and decided to establish a full-line shoe jobbing house there (the first building on Huron St. is gone). Other members of the Beals family and Alexis Torrey soon bought out Mann's interest and in 1879 the firm became known as the Beals and Torrey Shoe Co. Shortly thereafter, the company built a factory on Wisconsin Avenue (demolished), where they turned out men's work shoes and women's turned shoes, both high and low cut. In 1888 the firm moved its store and factory to a new site on West Water St. (demolished), but soon the jobbing business took all of the available space and the factory was moved several times in the next few years to various leased spaces.
In 1904 the company decided to move its factory operations to a building erected for that purpose in Watertown, retaining its leased space at 231 E. Buffalo St. in Milwaukee, as its offices and salesroom. For a time the factory produced the same types of shoes as had been made in Milwaukee, but after the death of E. F. Beals ca. 1907, the manager of the Watertown plant, Frederick W. Pfeiffer, convinced the new management that this type of operation was expensive and impractical. The management decided to specialize in "BP" brand "Mens' Fine Goodyear Welt Shoes." Their new product soon established an "enviable reputation in the shoe industry." By 1909 the company had become "one of the largest concerns of its kind in the West." Sixteen traveling salesmen operating directly out of the Watertown plant were so successful that the company had difficulty keeping up with its orders. World War I boosted sales immensely when demand was heavy for this type of dress shoe for the military. In 1917 the plant produced 500 pairs of shoes daily. By 1918 the company had outgrown its Milwaukee Street factory and began construction of a new plant on Hart Street. By then the company supplied the shoe trade all over the United States, Cuba, Mexico, and Central America.
In 1920 operations were moved to the new site. Meanwhile, in 1917 the firm had changed its name to the Beals-Pratt Shoe Manufacturing Co. In 1925 Walter J. Booth bought control of the company and changed its name to his. After he died in 1936, the Ideal Shoe Co. merged with the Booth Co., and the new firm became known as the Mid-States Shoe Co. By 1954 the company had five plants in Wisconsin. In that year one thousand employees (four hundred in Watertown), produced 10,000 pairs per day of Blackhawk and Classmates children's shoes and Crosby Square men's shoes. The annual payroll for the Watertown plant in 1954 was $1,000,000 and its shoes were "one of Watertown's most widely distributed products."
After the shoe company moved out of its original Watertown factory in 1920, the building housed the Breuer-Stone, Inc., a local printer and manufacturer of printing machines. This relatively short-lived company was no longer listed in the city directory for 1930. Before 1930 the building was purchased by the D. and F. Kusel Co. for its dairy equipment division. The Kusel Company was one of the oldest business concerns in Watertown. It was begun in 1849 as a stove and tin shop on West Main Street by a newly arrived immigrant from Germany, Daniel Kusel. In that year Kusel, who came to Watertown with a nest egg of $3000 in gold, also began construction of his elegant pink brick Italianate mansion which remains in relatively intact condition to this day. Soon Kusel added retail hardware sales to his business. In 1864, two of his sons took over the firm, which became known as the D. and F. Kusel Company. At that time the firm's manufactured products included tin, copper, and sheet ironware. In 1897, the firm was incorporated under the leadership of the third generation of Kusels. Around 1910 the firm began the manufacture, jobbing, and importing of equipment and supplies for dairies, cheese factories, creameries, and ice cream production. In 1938 the dairy division was split from the retail hardware function and incorporated as the Kusel Dairy Equipment Co. by two members of the fourth generation of the family, Daniel and Robert. By 1954, the company had greatly expanded. In that year 50 employees made plate heat exchangers, cheese vats, cheese presses, agitators, stainless steel tanks, and small dairy plant tools. Their products were shipped throughout the U.S. and to foreign countries as well. The firm was still operating in 1965.
A commemorative newspaper article stated that "the Kusel Co. and name have been identified with the history and growth of Watertown as a community." The Kusel firm and the Globe Flour Mill, both founded in the 1840s, are the oldest industrial institutions remaining in Watertown.
The building on Milwaukee Street is not the building most closely associated with the Kusel family, however. The beautiful Italianate Kusel homestead, along with nearly every other pre-1937 house occupied by members of the Kusel firm remain in good condition. The Kusel Hardware Store on West Main Street is still doing business in the ca. 1870s and 1905 Italianate and Queen Anne building on the same site as the original 1849 tin shop. However, the dairy equipment plant does have some historical interest for its connection with this pioneer family. The addition of dairy equipment jobbing and manufacture to their business ca. 1910 is indicative of the importance of the booming dairy industry in Wisconsin, the heart of which many say is in Jefferson County.
Building Description
The Beals and Torrey Shoe Co. factory is located four blocks south of Main Street at the west end of the Milwaukee Street bridge crossing the Rock River. Industrial uses predominate along both sides of the river south of Main Street, as they have since Watertown was founded in the 1840s. To the north of the shoe factory is the old Globe Flour Mill, started in 1845 and still serving as a feed and grain warehouse. To the south is a one-story metal warehouse. But a residential neighborhood begins across the street from these buildings and stretches westward.
Built in 1904, the shoe factory is three stories high on the west and four stories high along the north, south, and east sides where the ground slopes downward toward the river. The building is of cream brick, load-bearing construction with a rubble foundation barely visible on the east side. Brickwork is in common bond with an occasional row of headers. A gently sloping shed roof is hidden on the west, north and south sides by a parapet which is trimmed by a slightly corbelled table of bricks. A square chimney rises from the northeast corner. On the 150' long east and west sides, 23 windows light each story, with full-sized windows on the basement level to the east and one-third-height basement windows on the west. The 40' wide north facade is five windows across and the 40' south side is divided into six bays. The full-sized windows have four-over-four sash, boarded up for safety. All windows have segmental arches composed of three rows of headers and thin stone sills. A raised loading dock door on the west facade giving access to the railroad spur is the original, with diagonal tongue-in-groove panels and an overhead transom. A modern glass and aluminum passage door is located at the southwest corner of the south facade and another utility door under a cast iron lintel provides access to the east side at the northeast corner of the building. "Kusel Dairy Equipment Company" is painted on three sides of the building. Fire escape platforms with scroll brackets were added to the south and east facades at an unknown date.
To the north projects a low, one-story cream brick boiler house with a shed roof built at the same time as the main block. Other additions were constructed sometime between 1937 and 1954. Two, constructed of concrete block with rectangular window openings, project from the east and north sides. A tiny frame addition with a shed roof extends north off the boiler room.
Also located on the site, on piers over the water, is a small, metal-sided shed.
The interior of the factory consists mostly of open spaces between exposed brick walls. Floors of hardwood on wood joists running across the building are supported by heavy wood posts and beams joined by metal beam connectors. A wide wooden staircase trimmed with a simple wainscot balustrade joins the floors. Plasterboard partitions of unknown date divide up the south section of the structure.
The shoe company used the basement for its sole leather department, the first floor for finishing and packing, the second floor for bottoming, and the third for cutting and fitting. In 1937 the Kusel Co. used the basement for printing (perhaps space leased to others), the first floor as a tin shop and the second and third floors as warerooms.
View looking southwest (1984)
