Inside the Wilcox Tannery
Click Here for more views of the outside of the Tannery Complex
It was in 1866 when Maurice M. Schultz erected the Wilcox Tanning Company in Wilcox between the West Branch of the Clarion River and railroad.
The tannery is said to have employed up to 300 men an additional 400 men to peel bark from the hemlock. As part of the tanning process hemlock bark was required in great quantities. The bark contains valuable chemicals, such as tannin, used to tan the hides. The lumber companies in the region would provide the 25,000 cords of hemlock bark that the tannery required to process the nearly 333,000 buffalo and cow hides processed at the facility annually. The plant had 13 boilers powered by gas wells located at the site. 732 vats, seven (7) feet wide, nine (9) feet long and five and a half (5 1/2) feet deep were encompassed within the facility, making it the largest leather tanning facility in the world.
By the start of World War 2, The Wilcox Tannery had absorbed the greater part of it's property in Wilcox. When the Elk Tanning Company was organized, the Wilcox Tannery was merged into the new company, which operated most all of the still existing tanneries in Elk County. One goal of the new company was to liquidate it's vast holdings of land that was now stripped of it's valuable timber and now useless to the company. It also sold off several blocks of buildings and a number of it's company owned houses in Wilcox.
The photos below show what work was like at the tannery.
Buffalo hides, and later cow hides, were received at the tannery by rail from meat processing plants such as Swift & Armours. Hides were imported from far away as South America.
After arrival at the tannery, raw hides organized and given a lime bath treatment to loosen the hair.
Above and below are Tom Redmond & Dave Zimmerman running the fresh hides through a machine that would remove much of the flesh and hair from the hides.
Above, operators called "beamers" work on wet hides that were draped over a wooded stand, or bench, to remove any remaining flesh.
The hides were then moved to vats of tanning liquor for periods of weeks to tan the hides. The vats were about 10 feet square and six feet deep. The Wilcox Tannery had over 50 vats that were in operation.
One of the basic elements of the tanning process involved the process of soaking the hides in a solution containing finely ground hemlock bark. The release of various chemicals from the bark (leaching) would biologically treat the hides, thus providing the durable leather.
This leaching process consisted of mixing the ground bark, sometimes with ground nuts, with water. Steam generators provided heat to the tanks to bring the mixture to boiling which would release the chemicals, called tannins. After the mixture extracted all the available tannin from the hemlock, the somewhat weak mixture was then moved to another tank containing fresh bark. The process was continued whit the liquor becoming stronger at each brewing of the mixture.
After the bark chips were leached of all available tannin, the bark was mixed with coal and transferred by conveyor to the boilers to be used as a fuel source.
The strong tanbark liquor was pumped into vats where the hides were immersed for tanning.
After soaking in the vats, the hides were moved to the "Scrub House". Here the hides were placed into huge drums which were rotated by gas engines. While tumbling in the drums, a mixture of oils and water were added to the hides.
Once the hides were "tanned" they were hung in drying rooms
The above picture shows hides hanging in a drying room or "dry loft'. The dry loft was a long wooden building used to dry the hides prior to rolling and finishing. The hides were draped over wooden racks that extended over the length of the three different buildings and to a height of 30-40 feet high. This building had no windows, but was equipped with louvered wall openings to allow air to move through the structure.
Above shows Mr. Frank Nitsche in one of the drying rooms or "dry loft".
This 1906 photo above shows Oscar Johnson finishing or rolling a tanned hide in an area called the "Roll House". The tanned leather was placed the into one of three rolling machines which compressed the leather between a brass plate and rollers. This was the final step prior to shipment to the customer.
Finished tanned leather being stacked for shipment.
Go to the outside of the Wilcox Tannery
Information and photos for this story provided by the Wilcox Public Library and the Jones Township Historical Society