The Mossmans: Hardware Money Behind the Magnet Wire Industry

The fortune: W. E. Mossman and his son B. Paul Mossman (born 1870 at Coesse, brought to Fort Wayne in 1879) built the Mossman-Yarnelle Company, wholesalers of heavy hardware — incorporated in March 1908 and reorganized in October 1919 with capital of $400,000, B. Paul Mossman president, by the 1923 city directory. B. Paul Mossman also stood in the first rank of the new insurance city: the same directory lists him as a vice-president of the Lincoln National Life Insurance Company.

What it built: The Mossman fortune's largest consequence was another man's company. W. E. Mossman wanted his family nearby, so he offered his son-in-law George A. Jacobs — who had married Ethel Mossman — a building in Fort Wayne for Jacobs's fledgling wire-enameling company. That company, Dudlo, founded the magnet wire industry in Fort Wayne and made the city, in the words of its 1965 company history, the magnet capital of the world. The Mossman money was the seed under the industry treated in the next entry.

What it left: B. Paul Mossman's own house, the massive Richardsonian Romanesque stone house at 1202 West Wayne Street designed by Wing & Mahurin in 1905, was donated to the City of Fort Wayne in 1949 and served as the quarters of the city's art museum until the museum moved to Main Street in 1983; it is now a private residence and the Castle Gallery. The family name also stands at the head of Fort Wayne philanthropy: the Community Foundation's own centennial history records that William Mossman gave the new Fort Wayne Foundation its first gift, $5,000, in 1922. A Robert G. Mossman Charitable Lead Trust in Fort Wayne appears in the public IRS record (its most recent return in the public database is for fiscal 2014). The Mossman entries continue in the houses section below.

Sources:

1. Fort Wayne city directory, 1923 (R. L. Polk & Co.) — Mossman-Yarnelle incorporation and capital; B. Paul Mossman's Lincoln Life vice-presidency.
2. Allen County Genealogical Society, Dudlo Company history; Roy M. Bates, History of the Dudlo Manufacturing Company (1965) — the Mossman backing of George Jacobs.
3. West Central Neighborhood Association, 2005 Home and Garden Tour notes — the Mossman house, the 1949 donation, the museum years.
4. Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne, "A Century of Giving" — William Mossman's $5,000 first gift, 1922.
5. IRS nonprofit records via EIN registry — Robert G. Mossman Charitable Lead Trust, Fort Wayne.