ANNUAL REPORT—MANUFACTURES. 
61 
leather, all in a highly prosperous condition. The extensive establishment 
of Mr. Guido Pfister is probably as widely and favorably known as that of 
the Wisconsin Leather Co., though perhaps throughout different parts of 
the country. Two hundred thousand sides of leather would be a moderate 
estimate of this branch of our manufactures during the past year, with a 
prospect of a steady increase hereafter.” 
Iron manufactures are at present outrunning all others. The 
total value of products of this kind in 1860 was $372,960. In 
1869, as shown by the census of 1870, it had reached $2,639,- 
175. A very large proportion of this increase may be placed 
to the credit of the new Iron Company’s establishment at Mil¬ 
waukee. 
A lengthy account of this company’s work and operations 
was given in our report for 1869. But meantime so many 
improvements and additions have been made, that we gladly 
make room for the following statements contained in the re¬ 
port of the Chamber of Commerce, to which reference has been 
made so often already : * . 
i/ 
« 
“ The Milwaukee Iron Company has been in operation but three years, 
and it has already become one of the most extensive manufacturing con¬ 
cerns in the northwest, and at the rate of progress it has made thus far, it 
promises ere many years to become as extensive and complete as any other 
establishment of the kind in existence. 
During the past year the company have added a new pudding mill to 
their works, 80 by 230 feet, built in the most substantial manner, in which 
six single and seven double furnaces have been put in operation with room 
for four more, increasing the product of the mills three hundred tons of 
pig iron per week. The furnaces and machinery are of the very^best des¬ 
cription, as are all the machinery and appointments of these works. The 
company have also built a new blast furnace similar to the first one built by 
them a year ago. The two furnaces can make 30,000 tons of pig iron per 
annum. The rolling mill works have been largely increased, and are now 
turning out 2,400 tons of finished railroad iron per month. The immense 
freightage business of this company, and its prospective, as well as present 
importance to the carrying trade will be appreciated when it is known that 
during the past year, with its works yet incomplete, it received 37,544 tons 
of coal from Cleveland’, Erie and Buffalo, 17,080 tons of ore from Lake Su¬ 
perior, 11,355 tons of coke from Pennsylvania by rail, and 98,000 tons of iron 
ore by rail from Iron Ridge in this state. Of the latter, 67,700 tons w r ere shipped* 
mostly by lake, to Chicago, Wyandotte, Cleveland and Erie, 28,000 tons be¬ 
ing used here. - • 
