April i, 1907. | 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



209 



admiiiislration building of the company. A handsome young 

 Mexican met me there with a polite bow and a question in 

 Spanish. The story of my visit there is best told by the fine 

 illustrations that I am able to give of the factory. 



1 don't think 1 mentioned it before, but in the past guayule, be- 

 cause of its rubber, resin, and oil content, was highly prized as a 

 fiit'l- liiiUi-tl \iT\ nuu-li miifliiiivT u;is (lnn«' with if \ friiMvl 



Court i.v the AnMixi.sTRATiON Buii-ding ot the Conti.ne.nt.\l- 

 Mexic.vn Factory. 



figured that for years the Guggenheims in their great Mexican 

 smelters had unknowingly burned up $500,000 worth of rubber, or 

 about 10,000 tons of shrub. 



.\ftcr lunch at the officers' mess at the Continental, the cocho 

 grande took me to the neat guayule factory of Mr. Charles J. Mc- 

 Gregor, situated not far from the works already described. The 

 owner is a young .•\merican who was formerly employed by the 

 Standard Oil Co. in Chicago as candle manufacturer. Becoming 

 ambitious he came to Mexico and started up a candle factory of 

 his own at Aguas Calientes. He couldn't compete with the pro- 

 duct already on the market, and ere long his light went out. Then 

 he came to Torreon and embarked in the dairy business. While 

 following this calling he met a young Californian. Mr. .X. -S. 

 Valdespino, who interested him in guayule, to which he now de- 

 votes all of his time. His plant covers about lYz acres, the pro- 

 duct going to Hamburg and .-\ntwerp. 



The Delafond Rubber Co., another small factory in the out- 

 skirts, I did not visit, as it has not been operated for some months. 



A brown skinned coachman with much whip cracking took m<: 

 next to the factory of La International Mexicana Compagnie 

 Guayulcra. S. .-X. Mr. .\. S. Valdespino, the head of the concern, 

 was absent, for which I was sorry, as he is credited with having 



had quite a finger in the guayule pie. For example, he was con- 

 nected with the factory at Viesca, is said to be interested in the 

 Saltillo plant, he started McGregpr, and has an interest in the 

 newly projected Torres factory at Gomez Palacio. (Torres was 

 formerly with I'ena and is in the Banco Mineraro at Gomez 

 Palacio), Mr. R. C. Bean, a six-foot Yankee, however, did the 

 honors, showed me the factory, and answered many of my ques- 

 tions with the greatest frankness. He was, by the by, very pro- 

 nounced in his preference for the European market as against the 

 .•\merican. He said he got better prices, and there were fewer 

 kicks and claims, and the settlement was always in the form of a 

 draft against bill of lading. He estimated his product at a ton 

 a day. 



GOMEZ PALACIO VISITED. 



I HERE are at present two factories at Gomez Palacio, with a 

 third one in prospect. To get there from Torreon stand on the 

 sidewalk opposite Sternau's, the only good place to eat in the city, 

 and when an electric car comes along board it and say, "Por 

 Gomez Palacio?" The conductor then says, "No, senor; especial," 

 and you get off and wait another half hour. Then when a car for 

 the elect, with two trailers for peons comes, take a seat, and in 

 due time you will be landed in a dreary plain in a muddle of 

 adobes, saloons, and freight cars. Far in the distance, you spy a 

 factory. "Fabrica guayule ?" you ask of a passing moco. "Si," he 

 replies, which means "yes," and has no reference to the patro- 

 nymic Silas or to the gusty aspiration with which you view the 

 dusty tramp in prospect. Nearing the factory the roar of the 

 pebble mills and the unmistakable smell of the crushed shrub 

 prove the correctness of the diagnosis. 



This is the National Rubber Co. (Fabrica de Hule National), 

 and is presided over by Mr. William Magenau, the general man- 

 ager. It is financied by capitalists in San .Vntonio, Texas, and, 

 by the way, they claim to have shipped considerable Texas shrub 

 to this factory and to have got a good percentage of rubber 

 from it. Mr. Magenau, w-ho was a mining engineer, early took 

 an interest in guayule, and is running his factory under the 

 Bcrgner patents. His product is sold direct, partly in the United 

 States and partly in Europe. 



While going over the factory he told me of an amusing in- 

 stance of Mexican official interference. It seems that a guayule 

 factory, like a rubber reclaiming plant, is too odorous a neighbor 

 to be gracefully tolerated. The smell to which some object 

 comes chiefly from the great vats in the yard where the 

 bagasse — the waste fiber — is pumped to dry out and be used for 

 fuel. The city fathers of Gomez Palacio ordered Mr. Magenau 

 to put lime in the mess. Luckily he tried the experiment on a 

 small scale first, and let loose a smell that would make sulphu- 

 rated hydrogen seem like rose attar in comparison. So they didn't 

 insist. 



.'\d.mi.\istr.\tiox Building of the Continental-Mexican Rubber Co., .\t Torreon. 



