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1918 Linn Factory on Lake St and 1917 Linn Stock Certificate


Morris Chronicle article lists owners and workers

Photo and comments courtesy of Rene Elliott.

They didn't actually move into the new factory on Lake St. until a year later, Jan. 1918. Lynn Kenyon offered to give them the land occupied by the blacksmith, wagon and machine shops on Grove St. George Whitman offered his vacant land along Hargrave St., in either case a large DeDion crude oil engine was suggested as power. But the Phillips & Nichols mill site by the fairgrounds would mean water power (what H.H. Linn had been looking for) and electric lights for the village, which Lynn Kenyon, owner of the gaslight franchise for homes and streetlights, which he built in 1898, did not want to happen. Kenyon already had installed a electric light plant in his own home (1913?) and then there was the explosions, at the 1913 school commencement ceremonies upstairs in the Parish Hall, which was just one fixture but the panic was memorable, one injury to a child dropped from an upstairs window was all. But the cellar of George Whitman's house was more spectacular, the story was Kenyon and Whitman went to the basement to investigate and one of them lit a match, and the stairs were not there by the time they went to run up them.The first thing H.H. Linn did was install an electric light plant in the Parish Hall to run his "moving picture show" and wired it for electric lights, in 1915.

Linn Stock Certificate issued April 1, 1917, image and comments courtesy of Rene Elliott.

Since it became a Linn thread, this is what the common stock shares (the historical society has the originals) looked like, this wa certificate # 7, shares at $100 par value, I think they paid $125 circa 1920 when they were bought up by Linn, Robert Thach (agent for foundry TISCO that made all the track parts), and George Whitman.

Linn Tractor Company History -- part 1 and part 2

http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/l/linn_mfg/linn_mfg.htm
http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/l/linn_mfg/linn_mfg2.htm