I have several pictures of Dultmeier wagons - do YOU?
I'd like to get them to scan and add to my Manning Database.

Julius Ohrt with his Dultmeier wagon


From the Ewoldt collection


Herb Schroeder in wagon (father of Cleone & Wayne)
Wayne Schroeder pitching bundles

I've worked on Manning history for over 40 years and even though I have a fairly good grasp of our local history in general, I'm always amazed when I start looking at a specific subject in detail.

Recently I came upon a number of Dultmeier advertising sheets.
Dultmeier is before my time, but I do remember a lot about MJM that followed, then when Orland Fara purchased much of the property, and now Gene & Sherri Steffes are the owners.

The thing that amazes me the most is the ingenuity the Dultmeiers had back in the early 1900s and then the creativity continued through MJM, and another important entrepreneur who moved to Manning in the late 1960s, and now followed by one of the hardest working and ingenious fellows we have in Manning.

Now I realize there were/are other Manning area men/women who fit into this category but for now I'm concentrating on the history surrounding the Dultmeier building.


Just think, all of these items and hundreds more were developed and built right here in Manning.

Below is a message sent to me by Don Wurr - quite interesting how the 2 businesses worked together and how employers kept their workers busy.
The hopper Don talks about would be similiar to the one shown in the above ad.

"When I worked for Manning Heating And Sheet Metal, Dultmeier Manufacturing was then called MJM. When it was a little slow at Manning Heating And Sheet Metal, we would make those hoppers in our sheet metal shop. There were two patterns we traced on a 4' x 8' piece of sheet metal and cut them out. The sides of the hopper was one piece and the end was another. Then we would bend the piece that made the sides on our metal brake. We then had to put the two pieces together by bending flanges with a mallet to make the completed hopper. They were then sent to MJM.
Those were the days. :>)

Don Wurr


Peter Hansen, Walter Hansen, Theodore Hansen, John R. Hansen

Iowa Firm's Mahogany Teeth, And Other Items
By Arlo Jacobson
(Des Moines Register Staff Writer)
11/22/1970

Mahogany, the exotic wood of the orient, is used in large quantities by MJM Enterprises, Inc., here in the manufacture of a mundane implement called a hay sweep - the long-toothed device used to Manning gather and stack loose hay.

The company, known for many years as Dultmeier Manufacturing, is owned by Ralph McGrath, president; Albert Musfeldt, secretary-treasurer; and Clifford M. Johnson, vice-president and sales manager.

Other Products
The three, all former employees of the firm, were offered a chance to buy it in 1962 from John R. Hansen, former Iowa Highway Commissioner and widely-known political figure.

In addition to the mahogany teeth for hay sweeps, the firm also manufactures wag-on boxes, grain augers, grain gates for wagons and trucks and other farm-oriented items.

The line has changed since the firm was founded in the early 1920s to conform with the changes in farming methods.

Dultmeier Manufacturing was formed after Frank Dultmeier invented an adjustable wagon hound. For the uninitiated, a wagon hound is the pair of braces that allow the wagon tongue to be affixed to the wagon.

In early days, neither wagons nor hounds were standard, and a hound from one manufacturer wouldn't fit the wagon of another.

Dultmeier's adjustable hound solved the problem until the parts were standardized.

"Dultmeier was a very clever individual," commented Johnson. "But Hansen had the marketing know-how and ingenuity for a larger-scale operation and he bought out Frank Dultmeier and his brother Henry about 1922-23."

Backgrounds
The three current owners, who have varied backgrounds, operate the plant in a co-operative manner.

McGrath, the president, has the longest period of service with the firm - joining it just out of high school and working his way up to production manager.

Johnson was originally in the shoe business in Manning - a business which he didn't particularly like. Hansen, a good friend, needed someone in his office and asked Johnson in 1954 to work for a few months. He remained.

Musfeldt farmed in the Manning area originally and gave it up in 1954 for health reasons to also join the Dultmeier Company. He was serving as purchasing agent under the former owners.

MJM products are shipped over a wide area, depending on size. Wagon boxes, for instance, are limited to a six-state area surrounding Iowa because of heavy freight rates.

Grain augers are sold as far east as Ohio and Indiana, and also into the surrounding states. They are a big item in Indiana.

Both augers and wagon boxes are sold through distributors.

The grain gates go to all 48 continental states and are purchased by a number of truck body manufacturers, who buy direct. The item is not patented, so sales have to depend on quality and dependability.

Why Mahogany?
The mahogany or "apitong" sweep rake teeth are sold in all hay-growing states and orders are taken in advance so that the mahogany can be ordered from the Philippines. The mahogany is preferred because of its straight grain and fewer knots than any other type of wood, Johnson said.

It is ordered a railroad carload at a time, six months in advance. Johnson recently completed a sales trip on sweep rakes and they will be made throughout the winter months for spring delivery.

The company delivers up to 80 per cent of all merchandise sold, with other lots going by common carrier and some picked up at the plant here by purchasers.

A good portion of the manufactured items are sold through chain stores which buy in volume lots for shipment to their various outlets.

The varied line of manufactured items allows production to be evened out during the year and provide steady work for 20 regular employs. The payroll is supplemented by high school and college students during summer months.

WOOD FROM MALAYA.
Wood that travels half-way round the world is being used in manufacturing of buckrake teeth by MJM Enterprises, Inc, in Manning. A car-load is being unloaded in the above picture with Albert Musfeldt, left, supervising the work.
Known as keruing, the substance is hard wood similar to our oak. It is superior to any found in the U S, free of knots and does not warp. It's shipped from Malaya to the west coast where it is cured and then sent to various manufacturers. (Monitor Photo)


Ralph McGrath, president of MJM Enterprise, Inc.

Clifford M. Johnson, left, vice-president of MJM Enterprises, Inc., holds mahogany tooth used in hay sweeps, and Albert Musfeldt, secretary-treasurer of the firm, looks on.

Now keep in mind that there once were 2 railroads that served this business on this grade: the Great Western and the North Western. Dultmeiers probably also had shipments of supplies brought in and shipped out finished products on the Milwaukee which was on the upper grade.
One of the main reasons why this business is in the flood plain was to have direct rail access with 2 of the railroads which followed the Nishnabotna in the flat bottoms so they didn't have to dig through the large hills in this area.

On the west side of the Nishnabotna you see the Great Western RR, and on the east side you see the Northwestern which ran under the Milwaukee Trestle Bridge. Since the Northwestern was the first right-of-way to go through Manning, the Milwaukee had to build the large bridge to span the 100 feet width of the Northwestern property.
The reason there is no bridge over the Great Western is because it came through several years after the Milwaukee was established here.

The reason why the span of the concrete columns is wider in this area is because the Nishnabotna originally flowed between them. Then when the Great Western came through, they straightened a lot of the creek to reduce the number of bridges.

You can still see the original meander of the Nishnabotna on the north side of the Milwaukee and west side of the Great Western tracks.

This deadend oxbow was named "Canary Island" by the kids because of all of the Gold Finches that lived in this area.

You can see a lane heading out north from under the Milwaukee and over a bridge on the Nishnabotna (you can still see some of the pilings yet today down in the creek) - I know this because we own the property on both sides of this area of the creek.
The road led up to a farm place where later on Emil, Lucille, and Janice Ress lived. Their lane then continued north and connected to the main road on the north - now 300th Street which is the northern edge of Manning city limits.

By this time the Northwestern had abandoned their tracks in the 1930s because of major flooding and rented access on the Great Western tracks...then later the Northwestern purchased the Great Western line through Manning.
During this time, Orland Fara utilized the Northwestern rail service extensively, before it was abandoned in the early 1980s.
I've stated this many times but if it weren't for Orland Fara and the consortium he formed to purchase the bankrupt Milwaukee RR, we would not have a rail system in Manning today and who knows...maybe a salvage crew would have torn down and removed the trestle bridge for scrap metal...fortunately the Burlington Northern came along and purchased the tracks from Orland and his consortium.

You can see the old Dultmeier buildings in the middle front and many of the MJM buildings on the left side of the picture.


The overhead bin was used to collect sawdust from cutting wood for the wagons inside the mill.

I wrote about flooding in this area. Here is a view from the 1950 flood and one from the 1996 flood.
1950 view from 141.
You can see part of the Manning Creamery in the back right and part of MJM to the north.


1996 view of MJM from Front Street

Now I bring you forward to 2020 when Gene & Sherri Steffes owns the Dultmeier building where he has a very successful pallet business.

More than likely, if Gene had not purchased this part of the property that was previously owned by Orland Fara (MAC), it would probably have been torn down and now made into a park and trails.

While it is nice to have park and trail space, we also need taxpayers with businesses to support those parks and trails and the city in general...something a number of people in Manning do not think about or appreciate.


North end of Gene's business where he has his office and break room.

Northeast part of the building where Gene built his office.

October 2015 view before Gene tinned the building


February 2007 view of Manning Ag Center sale
You can see the Dultmeier building way in the distance.


Orland had a successful seed oats fanning and bagging business on the south end of the Dultmeier building.

Gene sold this cleaning system


Here is an inside view of the huge warehouse of the Dultmeier building.

When applicable I try to add my family connections to these feature stories. John R. Hansen, mentioned in the Register article is my grandmother, Ida (Grau) Kusel's first cousin...Ida's mother was Mary Hansen.


"To the Hansens With Best Wishes Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson"
Orval Fink took a picture of this autographed image with the Johnsons. I wonder if the original image still exists today?
Unfortunately I have lost track with my 2nd & 3rd cousins in the Hansen family but I wish some of them would contact me so I could get more pictures from their part of the Manning connected family history.

In some cases, I have more pictures of different families I'm not related to, than I have for my own branches of my family tree.


Mary Hansen (wife of John) January 14, 1960


John R. Hansen, Congressman


John R. Hansen for congress


Below are some pictures of the 3 men who started MJM - McGrath, Johnson, Musfeldt.
While I will have a picture of many Manning people in my database, for most of them it may be a baby picture, or some other snapshot but most of the time I won't have a picture that fits the historical perspective such as a military picture for a Veteran, or a picture of a person involved with their business.
The McGrath family is just one of many families I have very little if any pictures. I have none for Ralph McGrath or his brother Robert who both served during WWII.
Sometimes there are images of people in the history books I can scan, but anyone who follows my web page will often read that I want to scan original pictures...the only way to get a good digital scan.

Another interesting factoid is that the vast majority of pictures I have of individuals came from a non-relative's collection I scanned. MOST family collections have a lot of Non-family pictures.


July 8, 2000 David Rauch & Albert Musfeldt
While razing MJM and digging up the concrete a time capsule was found. It was a relatively recent capsule and unfortunately the water jug, while thought of at the time as water tight was not able to protect the paper contents inside from all of the floods.

Albert & Arlene (Lohmeier) Musfeldt

Albert & Arlene - sponsors for Karl Rutz


"Bud" Clifford Manning Johnson 1926 in front of his dad Chris Johnson's shoe store on Main Street

Bud along Main Street - Corner Cafe in the background.

Letha (Boysen) Johnson - wife of Bud

Letha - high school teacher many of you will remember

The only scan I have from an original photo of Ralph McGrath.

Marie (Moser) McGrath holding Ralph Harding McGrath 1 year 23 days - Christmas 1916
This picture came from the Verna & Karl Schmidt collection sent to me from out of town in 2008

Below - image I scanned from the 1981 Manning Centennial - family section.

Ralph & Lorane (Kahler) McGrath
I am looking for military pictures and information for both Ralph and his brother Robert.

Zoom of scan - images scanned from books and newspapers are on a mat type print so you get dots instead of a solid/smooth image from an original photo and why I'm always requesting those originals to scan...


As I worked on this feature story, I kept coming back to why was Manning basically self-sufficient for the first 80 years of its existence and then slowly one business after another that provided us services and products closed their doors...the creamery, hatcheries, slaughter house/meat locker, grain elevators, farm equipment stores, grocery stores, clothing and shoe stores, furniture stores, and on and on.

I have many ideas why, and I know other people have ideas, but I think one of the main reasons is more and more people started buying out of town.
You can argue the many reasons that made this come about but no matter what the reasoning or justification in people's minds, buying from businesses out of town, when we had one or similar ones here, killed many of the hundreds of businesses we once had in Manning.


Now let's think about this situation on a national level...
In the 1970s and 80s Japan started taking over the electronic industry and again for many reasons the US population started purchasing from Japan and not companies that made the same/similar products right here in the US.
So again, "buying out of town or in this case out of country" killed a lot of US businesses. I think a big factor was people didn't want to pay the higher prices here, and Japan was able to make things cheaper over there.

Take this out to the end results - less US businesses, less jobs, less taxes paid here and on and on...VERY similar to what happened in Manning.

Now come forward to the 2020 Pandemic.
Japan kind of faded away, where once it appeared they would take over the world with their electronic industry, but then along comes China.
Along with it came greedy and corrupt politicians and large US companies that became multi-national who also did not have the best interest in the US - the country where they made it big and became wealthy.

Now I'm not an isolationist and we need to work with the people/countries of the world but we definitely lost our way over the last several decades and forgot to look out for Number ONE - the United States of America.
Other countries for the most part did look out for themselves - and took advantage of the generosity of the US and its many stupid politicians and large corporations.

Now why do I write about this, realizing that many and probably most people won't care in the least what I have to say or agree with it?

I hope once this Pandemic passes we'll put things into high gear and start buying "Made in the US" and bring back more companies from outside this country - with even more emphasis and urgency than President Trump has since the beginning of his candidacy. We may pay more in the short term but in the long-term it will make our country even stronger.


And after hearing a fairly positive sounding rumor about Manning getting a grocery store again, sometime later this year - I hope that the people who previously said they wouldn't support the store locally because they could get things cheaper in other towns will rethink what they have done to hurt our community by NOT buying local.

I would guess right now, some of them are scared to death to drive to larger towns and stores and are buying things at our local Dollar General store.
Once this Pandemic passes I hope they'll realize the importance of having a local grocery store and supporting all of our businesses and institutions like the hospital, retirement homes, hospital, senior center, churches, schools, etc.


If you know of anyone or company who doesn't like the large populated areas of big cities and overpopulated states and they are looking for office space that will have brand new and expanded fiber optics service - let them know about this building in Manning.

The old Caleris building

123 Main Street (north end) owned by the Manning Betterment Foundation

Manning will have all new fiber optics service, plus now the fiber will go directly up to each home and business. The old system was fiber optics on the main trunks but copper lines up to the homes and businesses - now fiber lines will be available directly to every home and business with speeds up to 1 Gigabyte.
This fiber project will continue until fall before being completed...
In the background you can see the old Caleris building.
There is also a childcare business in the lower level (north end), along with a physical therapy business on the south end of the lower level.


Fiber lines are bored underground.


Underground containers for fiber optics junctions.


Flexible conduit for the fiber project.


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