Last week’s large fire at 1156 First Street was quite a site to see. Wonder what was there before Western Kentucky Trucking and All American Warehouses? The Winstead Distilling Co, Distillery No 19.

References:

Hendersonian: Budge Industries warehouse fire the city’s biggest in decades by Vince Tweddell

Late bloomin’ Car Works plant just one factor in delayed industrial growth here
Publication: Henderson Gleaner
Pub. Date: 10/15/2000
Frank Boyett
Yesterday’s News

The dawn of the industrial age in Henderson was delayed a decade by bad timing. It was worse than bad – it was terrible.

From the very beginning, and up until the relatively recent past, Henderson County has been primarily an agricultural community. What industry there was in the early days existed mostly to transform agricultural products into more marketable goods. Tobacco factories, gristmills and distilleries are cases in point.

Henderson’s first major industrial concern aimed at producing consumer goods was probably the George Delker buggy factory erected on Elm Street in 1872.

But the first major factory built in Henderson that could be classified as heavy industry is one that most of you probably have never heard of. I know I had wondered about it for a long time, catching only glimpses of it in the records, but never really getting a long, hard look.

But 120 years ago today the Henderson Reporter published a story that shed considerable light on this early industrial concern. It was called the Star Mining and Manufacturing Co. and was incorporated by the Kentucky General Assembly on March 15, 1869.

The factory was more commonly called the Henderson Car Works, and it was erected “with the intention of building railway cars of all descriptions,” according to the Henderson Reporter.

“A large amount of money was subscribed to the capital stock, and an organization formed for the purpose. The contract for building three large houses and an engine house was let, and the work began. A contract was made with several of the largest manufacturing establishments in the country for all kinds of machinery to carry on the enterprise.

“Then it was shrouded in a hale of glory, and everything pointed to a successful carrying out of the enterprise.”

Most of this activity apparently took place in 1873-74. In 1873, the widow and family of James Alves sold 9.5 acres at the end of Center Street to the corporation and in exchange received $2,850 worth of stock in the corporation. It was one of the worst deals that family ever made, I assure you.

According to the deed, a condition of the sale was that the land would revert to the Alves family “if the car works of the said Star Mining and Manufacturing Co. shall not be erected.”

But it was erected. In fact, in 1875 the Star company had the county’s 16th largest tax bill, with property valued at $25,000. That would be the modern equivalent of about $360,000.

But it never produced a single railroad car. The Alves family sold the land to Star in August of 1873, and the following month the New York Stock Exchange took one of its biggest dives ever up to that point, setting off the financial panic of 1873.

Talk about bad timing.

The panic “left the concern with elegant and substantial buildings completed and a full stock of the finest machinery in place,” the Reporter said. But the company also had debts approaching $9,000, according to records at the courthouse.

“From the ruined condition of financial affairs the country over they were wholly unable to raise money, and it was absolutely foolish to solicit contracts for work,” the Reporter said.

In fact, the company never made a payment on the loans it had obtained from Farmers Bank and Henderson National Bank. The banks finally lost patience in 1876 and foreclosed. The company directors didn’t even contest the lawsuit. They were licked and they knew it.

The Henderson Car Works property was sold at a commissioner’s sale to a group of local businessmen and brought $7,300. That left the banks holding the bag for about $1,400.

All in all, it was a financial fiasco and there appeared to be no winners.

By 1880, however, the country was pulling itself out of the depression caused by the panic, and by the mid-1880s there were several major industrial concerns operating in Henderson. The most prominent was the Henderson Cotton Mills, which stood on Washington Street for a century.

A couple of those industries were large, modern distilleries. One was originally called the Hill & Winstead distillery, which bought the Henderson Car Works factory in the spring of 1880. Bonaparte Hill later left the company and the firm was called simply the Winstead distillery. It began producing whiskey in late October of 1880 and continued for about 20 years. A detailed description of its machinery is included in the Reporter story that was printed 120 years ago today.

The only vestige of the distillery is a short street called Winstead Avenue. It was the original access to the distillery and is located at the east end of First Street.

You’re probably wondering – as I did – why the sad story of the Star Mining and Manufacturing Co. is not told in E.L. Starling’s “History of Henderson County,” which was published in 1887. There is an obvious reason for that absence.

The president of the Star Mining and Manufacturing Co., you see, was none other than E.L. Starling.