Washburn and Moen Manufacturing Company
County: Lake
Location:
Erected: Erected by: North
Chicago Center for the Arts, Inc. and The Illinois State Historical
Society
The Washburn and Moen Manufacturing Company of Worcester, MA., established a wire mill - the Waukegan Works - east of
this location along Lake Michigan. The land for its Illinois
operation was purchased January 16, 1891, on the recommendation of
its advisers: Philip W. Moen, Charles G. Washburn, Fred H. Daniels,
and Edwin Lenox and included much of the Elisha Wadsworth estate. In
March 1891, on forty acres, construction of the mill complex was
started. By September, a galvanizing operation began. In November,
the company's subdivision, the Waukegan Highlands, was platted west
of the mill. The first wire was drawn in December. In 1892, the
Company, a principal manufacturer of Glidden Barbed wire, introduced
Waukegan Barbed Wire, invented by John D. Curtis. The establishment
of the plant led both an industrial and population boom. Workers from
Worcester and immigrants from Finland, Sweden, and Eastern Europe
moved to the Washburn and Moen subdivision. Slovenian workers called
the area the "Kompanija"- the Company District. First named South
Waukegan, the community that rapidly developed near the mill was
later incorporated as North Chicago. The American Steel and Wire
Company, which later became a part of the United States Steel
Corporation, acquired the mill in 1899. By the 1950s, the plant had
become one of Lake County's largest employers. In 1979, the mill was
closed for economic reasons.
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