DOWN TO THE WIRE
By Lou Bernard
I’ve never really written much about PennWoven Wire. It’s the place on the southeastern end of Lock Haven, right at the Castanea line—It’s a storage and sort of flea market place these days. I’ve not delved into it very much, but I’m bored, so let’s get to it.
The Pennsylvania Woven Wire Company was organized and incorporated in 1894, at a time when the need for metal-based products was growing. The first president was R. Worth Fredericks, who had grown up helping with his father’s local business in Farrandsville. The vice president was Charles Kreamer, a local lumber dealer who had previously worked with Fredericks, and the rest of the board positions seemed to be filled by Reese Kintzing, heir to a local lumber company who went into concrete.
They bought the land in Castanea, and had the factory built in 1894. Originally it was designed as a one-story building, with “straight-sided arched windows set in recessed bays, and oculus gable-end windows.” That’s stolen right from the Historic Resource Survey Form. If you’re not hugely into technical architecture, I’d point that out and say,”See those big arch windows? And the round ones on the end? Yeah, those.”
The company opened with about fifty employees, making wire cloth for screens. This was marketed around the country in a very big way, making PennWoven one of the most active companies in Lock Haven for a while. According to the Historic Resource Survey Form, the building contains the oldest industrial structures within the Lock Haven city limits.
The office building for the company still stands nearby—It’s down on the corner, along South Washington Street. Records are a bit unclear as to when that one was built, and some records suggest it may have been about 1900. More reasonable views state that it was probably built in 1894 with the rest of the factory, though, on the basis that they didn’t wait six years and then suddenly discover they needed office workers.
The 1925 Sanborn Map shows PennWoven Wire. I love the Sanborn Maps; they’re so incredibly thorough. They go into great detail about the buildings, what they’re made from, used for, how many children wrecked the carpet, etc. The 1925 Sanborn Map shows a brick drying tower (what the uneducated among us would call a “chimney”) and notes that the building had steam heat, electric lights, and was connected with the city water. It also mentions that there was a night watchman employed who did hourly rounds all night. The Sanborn Map stops just short of giving us the night watchman’s name and birthdate.
Now, here’s an interesting detail: PennWoven Wire helped make the nukes that were dropped in World War II. They made a type of metal mesh that was a component of the bombs. This was a big secret at the time, of course. So, the obvious question is: How did I find out about it? After the bombs were dropped, PennWoven told everyone.
Almost instantly after the government bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, PennWoven contacted the military with the question of whether it was cool to go public. The military came back with the answer that it probably wouldn’t hurt anything at this point, what with the manufactured mesh having been blown up and all. So PennWoven contacted the newspaper to let everyone know that they’d had a hand in designing a piece of history. One that detonated.
PennWoven closed its doors in 1961. A public auction sold off most of the machines, equipment, materials, and merchandise on July 10, 1961, and later, the building itself was bought by the Bald Eagle Transfer Company at the low, low price of sixteen thousand dollars at a bankruptcy auction.
That building still stands. People go past it all the time; you can see it from the highway as you enter Lock Haven. But most people aren’t aware that the place had a neat history to it.
