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1875 – 1967
Around the two big mill seats, the township ran a scatter of one- and two-man manufactories the directories catch in passing. Sawmills beyond Potato Creek and Knepp & Houser: Jacob Geiger, saw mill (Polk 1880–81; the atlas prints a Jacob Geiger as farming, settled 1865); Beck Bros, saw mill, new in 1882–83; H. W. Betz, "Saw Milling" (atlas 1875, settled 1855); Jeremiah Steele, "Farming and Saw Milling" (atlas 1875, settled 1864) — the nomination counts five sawmills in operation in the township by the 1880s, farming and lumber its chief industries of that decade. Brick: Levi Mangus, brickmaker (1880–81), then "Mangus Brothers & Co, brick manufacturers" beside his own listing (1882–83); township brick-and-tile from U. J. and S. B. Burkholder, "Farming and Brick and Tile Making" (atlas 1875), and Andrew Hullinger, "Farming and Brick Making." The same Levi Mangus is the atlas's "Gunsmith and Sewing Machines" — one man, three listed trades across carriers, printed as the carriers print him. Two sawmill lines reach this cluster from the people leg's Chapman and Howard biography reads, at that strength: Henry Geyer, a German-immigrant sawmill and farm operator at 395 acres in two counties (Chapman's biographies); and the Houser brothers' own sawmill venture — Chapman's biographies have C. D. Houser locating at Colemans in 1873 and purchasing a sawmill with his brother, and Chapman's narrative dates the erection of "their present sawmill" to 1875. Those are the same 1873 and 1875 readings that stand in this build's register against the Houser name, where the nomination's 1872 reads on the brothers' general store; whether the register's three dates belong to one venture or to two — a store and a sawmill — is a question the depth audit takes up against Chapman's pages whole, and nothing here merges them. William Rupe, broom manufacturer, stands across all three 1880s editions — a one-man manufactory attested a decade long. The silo thread runs fifty years: Polk 1916–17 lists two makers, the "Fair Silo Co, C L Fair mngr" and the "Hein Cement Products Co, silo mfrs," and in 1967 the trade is still in town — "SILO MFG., COMPANY, North Liberty, Indiana — Septic Tanks — Dry Wells — Silos — P & D Silo Unloaders — Bunk Silos," advertised twice in the yearbook. Whether the 1967 company descends from Fair or from Hein is stated by no carrier reached; the three names print as three attestations of one trade, not as a chain. The creamery — Schlosser Bros, J. G. Holderman manager, in the same 1916–17 list — is dug whole in the farms leg. Lumber and coal: the North Liberty Lumber & Coal Co. stands in Polk 1916–17 at name strength; the Whitmer Lumber Co. advertises on "Road #23" in 1967, with Whitmer's Greenhouse beside it in the same yearbook, and an A. W. Whitmer, insurance, in the 1916–17 list — the surname at two trades, kinship not stated.