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1880 · 1903 – 1905 · points pinned to the banked Oliver entry
Six hundred men in 1880: The banked Oliver entry prints the 1876 plan — 400 men casting 300 plows a day — and states that a peak employment figure is not carried in the sources reached. That remains true of a peak. It is a point, not a peak, and the peak pull stays open's companion note, with one trap named there: a 1950 figure of 21,525 employed in the Studebaker–Oliver district belongs to the combined redevelopment area and is not an Oliver figure.
The power plant, 1903–1905: The banked entry carries the works' hydro-electric plant at two dates — the 1903 purchase of the West Race water-power property, and a powerhouse dated 1901 in its closing paragraph. The University of Notre Dame's Building South Bend dates the plant entire: the Oliver company purchased the West Race property in 1903 to build the Oliver Power Plant; construction cost more than $250,000; and on 6 June 1905 the water wheels of the power plant turned for the first time. A railroad society's photograph caption dates the powerhouse 1901. The two datings stand unreconciled in the record reached, and are flagged in the companion note for assembly to give the powerhouse one voice.
Sources:
- Chapman, History of St. Joseph County (1880), the factory account — 520 operatives on the payrolls, a total of some 600 men.
- University of Notre Dame, Building South Bend, the Oliver entry — the power-plant property purchased 1903; construction over $250,000; the water wheels first turned 6 June 1905.
- Monon Railroad Historical-Technical Society, photograph caption — the "Power House (built 1901)"; printed against the Building South Bend dating.