Reeves Pulley Co./M.O. Reeves, Pulleys,etc.

[vetario]

Looking for leads to find and purchase Reeves Historical data and items: Antiques wood line shaft split belt pulleys, gears, variable speed transmission, Reeves name/face plates, publications regarding the Pulley Co. or the auto co. (Go-Buggy", "OctoAuto", etc. & possible locations of old Reeves autos/parts.
We are trying to build a collection for the great and great-great grandchildren of M.O. Reeves.
Any questions? Feel free to ask me.
Clark & Alaine Austin Reeves

[richard]

Reeves Pulley Group from December 1953.

[richard]

George Snyder building belts at Reeves Pulley. Date unknown.

[David Sechrest]

From I Discover Columbus, by William Marsh:

From 1880 to 1905, industry in Columbus was synonymous with Reeves. Always more or less of an industrial town, we had half a dozen other good-sized factories on which the bulk of the people depended for a living, and a number of small ones. I remember when we were pressing congress for a post office building we did not need, the promotion committee compiled a list of 111 industrial establishments, much on the system that small towns count the tombstones when trying to incorporate. We even included Dore Ogden's one-man factory producing a patent battery zinc and County Attorney Bill Waltman's two boys who made a mole trap which they sold quite successfully for several years.
The Reeveses, six brothers and a cousin, Marshall T., Milton O., Milton M. Dallas, Benton, and Girnie, and a sister, Mrs. Ollie McBride, plus another cousin Jeff, who was an attorney, descended on Columbus en masse from Rushville in 1875 with six heads full of mechanical ideas and business sense and a patent on a "stacker," a harvesting device which few people under 60 have ever seen. They organized the Columbus Wheel Company later changed the name to Reeves and Company. Then came the single unit thresher which has a long tin spout at the end through which the straw is blown to the stack after the grain is extracted. But before 1895, you disposed of the straw with the Reeves auxiliary "stacker" which was a traveling belt that caught the straw and elevated it 40 feet to build the stack. It looked like a miniature thresher itself. Just when the wheat empires of Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Canada were feeling the plow for the first time, and with the only practical device on the market, for some years the factory had plenty of work for sometimes 600 to 800 employees. Today (1956) the one unit thresher has largely been superseded by the combine, except for the smallest fields. By 1886, their plant occupied a whole block, from Fifth to Sixth, Wilson to Reed, with the office building across the street between Wilson and the old JM&I tracks which had a switch that ran directly into the factory. The office building still exists buried in the Cummins plant (once again, this is 1956).
Bent and Dallas Reeves were mechanical in their tastes and superintended factory operations while the four others divided the executive work, with M. O. thinking up a new mechanical gadget ever so often. Benton dropped out and went in for breeding fine horses. When the "farmer's Friend" tube stacker attachment came on the market, it bacame apparent that the Reeves device was doomed, but then an opporunity came to absorb a plant in Hamilton, Ohio, which was building both tube stackers and the traction engines which were necessary to power them in the days before we had gasoline tractors. Reeves had been buying engines from Richie & Dyer and for the season of 1895, asked for 100. this was beyond their capacity and Dyer, wishing to retire anyway, sold his plant and the rights to a clover huller he made, and the factory was moved here. This brought us the Clays, the Haggards, the Doellers and the Kailors with their interesting young people. The plant was enlarged to cover most of the old Big Four gravel pit, now the Cummins parking yard (1956) in 1902.
These new men, like the Reeves tribe, were active members of the Christian Church. It seemed either that an active interest in thresing machinery gave you a belief in the creed of Alexander Campbell, or a strong belief in that creed incubated a desire to make farm machinery in Columbus. Anyway they went together. Others active in the Reeves management in those days were Darcy and Olvey Lewellen (whose 1st wife was Daisy Portner, Marshall Reeves' marvelous believe-it-or-not secretary who could quote on demand any letter she had written in the previous ten years), and E. L. Williams, who was eventually let out of the organization, bought W. W. Wallace's real estate business, became famous as "Y. K. H." (You Know Him) Williams, and died in Houston about thirty years ago.
That was the period of the trusts in American industry and for many years, Columbus trembled under the fear that the Reeves plant would sell out to one of them and be closed up. Eventually, the plant was sold to Emerson-Brantingham and gradually ceased operations, then burned down.
All of the Reeves were pillars in the Christian church and active in every civic interest. Marshall and Milton O. served in the city council and Dallas on the school board. While they were rather definite in their ideas that the Christian church was greatly to be preferred over rival denominations, they did not show a spirit of bigotry and were as universally liked as there were universally respected. They were the kind of men who never failed to see and speak to you, whether you were Jos. I. Irwin or John Shatto.

End of Part One

[David Sechrest]

The Reeves family ran more to daughters than to sons. Benton's two boys Ary and Harry worked for a time in the plant but left and went for themselves in bicycles. Charley, the son of M. M. was in the factory for a good many years and Lou, the son of Dallas, was a mechanical genius and was with one or the other of the Reeves industries for many years.
The spirit of the Reeves men carried through to their other executives and superintendents and even to most of their men. Of the office crowd, oldsters will have pleasant memories of Harry and Charley Way, Harry Schowe, Olvey and Darcy Lewellen, Henry Yoder, Alex Foster, who followed his uncle, Rev. Jim Small, from the Ould Sod, Gene Wynegar, E. L. Williams, Ben Hutchings, and Daisy Portner. Among the plant men, whose memory is still green, at least with me, are the 40 year superintendent William Schowe, Al Stevens, Will Halsey, O. B. Shank, Joe McCabe, Peg Arthur, Bill Abbott, Joe McDougall, O. B. Halsey, Lon Kelble, and Gary Gaston.
All of these men, with the exception of the Clays and Henry Yoder who were Presbyterians, the Ways who were Episcopalians, and McCabe, who was a Catholic, were like their bosses, active Christians. Williams, Halsey, M. O. Reeves and Foster had better than average voices and formed a church quartet for many years. Columbus was a better place to live in the 80's and 90's because of the Reeves migration, both economically and socially.
M. O. Reeves was a prolific inventor and his mind did not stick to the things Reeves was building. Abbout 1885, befoer the days of built-in electric motors, factories were powered by long drive shafts with leather belts to each machine, running on heavy iron pulleys. These were both power consuming and expensive, but wood pulleys which had been tried, were short lived. In 1888, he became interested in a pulley built up of small pieces of glued wood, made by the Edinburg Pulley Company. He, with M. T. and Girnie, bought and moved the plant here and put up the new plant a block north and set up a new company: the Reeves Wood Split Pulley Company, which he and Grimes operated. It was able to run year round with an even force as its product was not seasonable. They first planned to take their plant elsewhere, but finally built it where it is now, and shipped their pulleys by the thousands all over the world until the electric motor destroyed most of their market.
Long before motor cars came in, M. O. Reeves built a car at the same time Elwood Haynes did, with the assistance of Lou, who had inherited the mechanical genius of the family, and prepared to market them. They made 8 cars, which members of the family, and Dr. Kirkpatrick tried out and for its day it was a good car, but an opportunity came to supply engines for a Detroit product, the Aerocar, and the Reeves car was dropped. One Reeves pilot model had 8 wheels, for easier riding.
The Areocar took several hundred of the engines, went bankrupt, and Reeveses decided pulleys were more profitable than motors. About this time, one dull day when the writer needed something to fill up the old Times (Will Marsh's father owned the Times, a local Columbus paper back in the late 1800's. Will eventually worked for the paper, as well as the Evening Republican in later years), he and Girnie organized in our minds the Bartholomew County Automobile Club, intended to include all 32 of the car owners of the county, and planned our first overland tour, which was to be to Hartsville the following Sunday morning for breakfast. We got 12 of the cars started at 6am, and we actually made the 15 miles to Hartsville by 8:30, have had to hold down the spped for Olvey Lewellen's curved dash one-lunger Oldsmobile. The strain of keeping so many cars synchronized on a schedule on such a long trip was too much and the club disbanded.

The Octanta with M. O. Reeves at the wheel

M. O. had patented a variable speed transmission, a device that does just what the gear shift does in your car, but with infinite variations of gear instead of just three or four. It proved too big and bulky for an automobile, although it was used in the eight Reeves cars, but it was fine for large machinery such as paper-making machines, and agreat many were sold, mostly built to order, tailor-made for the devices they were to serve. M. O. also built one gasoline railroad coach to utilize this device, but never marketed it. On Sunday, March 19, 1899, they took a party of local newspaper men and business leaders to Greensburg on a test run.
An interesting anecdote of the Reeves family was about the time Bent preserved the Watermelons. He had been a farmer and when the Reeves Tribe captured Fifth Street, he camped at California and built the big white house in a quarter block on the southwest corner which was afterwards the home for many years of Billie Burnett. Bent had an inordinate love of watermelons. One year, he had the very bright idea that he could have his melons all winter, so he bought half a dozen wagon loads and stored them in his basement in wet sawdust. In about 6 weeks, his appetite called for melon and he dug one out. He also dug out all the rest in short order and summoned all the garbage wagons in town while Mrs. Bent and the neighbors told him in no uncertain language what they thought of his ability as a fruit preserver.
The Reeves men, particularly M. O. and Lew, were inventive geniuses and held a great many patents, so many that at one time they employed a regular patent attorney at the Pulley Company, and solicited business from other inventors around town.

[nancs]

Photo from the Indianapolis STAR Magazine, Jan. 14, 1951



Nanc

[steve]

i am looking to purchase the old, round wood pieces from the cars that were the pulley system. if know where i can locate please email: [e-mail]. thanks so much

[David Sechrest]

rer said:

Reeves Pulley Company Year 1910
Company Was Founded In 1888
7th & East Wilson Streets

This picture was in the deep files at the congressional library in Washington D.C. It is presented here for all interested viewers that would never go to the congressional library. It makes more sense to view it where the folks appreciate it's history.

Bob

[/size]

A similar picture of Reeves Pulley is also on the Historic Columbus Indiana Website in the Illustrated Columbus Indiana 1914-1915 booklet.

[Deleted]

This add was in the 1898 Indiana Grand Army of the Republic book of Columbus, Indiana.

[RER]

Reeves Pulley Company Year 1910
7th Street Columbus Indiana

Notice: Notice three types of transportation, and they being horse and wagon, street car on rails, and motor vehicles. Also, note 7th Street was a dirt roadway.

[RER]

Reeves Pulley Company
7th Street Columbus Indiana

The road was paved and not much activity that day of this picture.

[RER]

Reeves Pulley Company
7th Street Columbus Indiana

[RER]

Amazing & Wonderfull Photos of Reeves Pulley Company Tractors, Vehicles and Family
Picture from 1900 through 1913

Go here: www.oto6.free.fr/6roues/6rouesreeves.htm

Sample Picture:

[RER]

Reeves Auto Company Year 1924
Picture partial from Log 1924 (re-posted)

[RER]

Reeves Auto Company Year 1927 (re-posted)
Columbus Indiana

Comment: You can't even buy four good tires for a vehicle today for the price of this vehicle.

[John Widener]

Can anyone tell me about this Reeves Wood Pulley i found at a barn sale?

I can make out the word REEVES and the other words are there but i cant read them. It also has this branded in to the wood. 14 S 8 and also under that is an "A" without the quotation marks. It is 13-3/4" tall and 8-3/4" wide and the small hole in the middle is 1-1/4"

[John Widener]

Here are more photos of the above pulley..

s101.photobucket.com/albums/m78/jkwidener/Reeves%20Pulley/

[RER]

Reeves Pulley Company Brief History Overview
From the Library of the United States Congress

John Widener
Re: Reeves Pulley Co./M.O. Reeves, Pulleys,etc.
« Reply #17 on Today at 3:05 »

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Can anyone tell me about this Reeves Wood Pulley I found at a barn sale?

The Reeves Pulley Company of Columbus Indiana was one of several manufacturing enterprises established by Marshal T. Reeves and his family. Beginning as a manufacture of agricultural farm implements in 1888, the Reeves family organized a company to manufacture split wood pulleys, and later introduced a variable speed transmission to complement their wood pulleys used in line-shifting. In 1896, caught up in the excitement surrounding an idea whose time had come, Milton Reeve, Marshall's younger brother, built several experimental automobiles used the variable speed transmission. It was developed for line shafting to power an early example of internal combustion engine automobiles.

Marshal T. Reeves, born on the family farm in Rush County Indiana on 5 March 1851, was the inventive member of the family. In 1869 he patented his first invention, a tongueless corn plow, and in the spring of 1875 he convinced his father and uncle to begin manufacture of the "Hoosier Boy Tongueless Corn Plow" in Knightstown Indiana. After a short time they moved the plow manufacturing operation to Columbus Indiana and soon there followed a succession of inventions from the fertile imagination of Marshall Reeves; the Reeves Straw Stacker invented in 1881, the Reeves Clove Huller introduced in 1895. In all, some 50 patents were issued to the Reeves Company with Marshall Reeves either named as sole inventor or co-inventor with another company employee.

In 1879 the name of the firm was changed from the Hoosier Soy Cultivator Company to Reeves and Company and the cultivator was discontinued in 1883 or 1884. The corn stacker proved to be the backbone of the implements business, however, and in a single year, 1887, 1200 were manufactured and sold. By the following year, the factory was employing between 150-200 people. Presumably, the implements business continued for some time, although no precise date can be cited for its demise.

In 1888 Marshall Reeves and his two brothers, Milton and Girney organized a new manufacturing venture, the Reeves Pulley Company. The new company initially occupied a small space in the implements factory but was move across the street into a new plant sometime around 1890.
___________________________________________________

Read Full Text: In the congressional library go to the site that follows. There are 7 pages to review and very easy instructions to "turn each data page" at the top of the text view. Enjoy the history as I did:

memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=hhdatapage&fileName=in/in0100/in0119/data/hhdatapage.db&title2=Reeves%20Pulley%20Company,%20Seventh%20%26%20Wilson%20Streets,%20Columbus,%20Bartholomew%20County,%20IN&recNum=0&itemLink=D?hh:1:./temp/~ammem_eJgX::

______________________________________________

John Widener said:
I can make out the word REEVES and the other words are there but i cant read them.

I have studied all your pictures and it appears that the words at the bottom of the pulley half circle says "Columbus Ind." The top appears to say in a half circle Reeves Pulley Co. Keep in mind that the wood has been sanded and refinished a few times and that has distorted the embossed areas somewhat.



Reeves Producion Line of Wooden Pulleys in 1900s
The design by these 14 pictures changed somewhat from the one pictured above. Go here:

memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=hhphoto&action=browse&fileName=in/in0100/in0119/photos/browse.db&recNum=0&itemLink=&title2=Reeves%20P&displayType=1

Note: The 14 Library of Congress photos were taken from 1910 through 1974 and presented by Jack E. Boucher. The 1910 picture is a drawing of the plant. All other photos were taken in 1974 and posted in the congressional library files in 1981.

[RER]

Reeves Pulley Company Motocycles 1896 and 1897
7th & Wilson Street
Columbus Indiana



Generation Two 1897

Generation One 1896

[RER]

President/CEO Overview of Reeves Pulley Company
Columbus, Indiana
Marshal T. Reeves, Manufacturer & Inventor, and President of Reeves & Company,
Reeves Pulley Company, and American Foundry Company

Go to this web site to read about Mr. Reeves and brothers:

searches.rootsweb.com/usgenweb/archives/in/bartholomew/bios/reeves698gbs.txt