Sall Mountain Company

The Sall Mountain Company was a Chicago asbestos manufacturer, organized in 1899, that made asbestos paper, millboard, pipe covering and cements under the Sal-Mo name, with a paper mill at Rockdale, near Hamilton, Ohio. It went through bankruptcy and reorganization in 1931 and 1932, and in 1956 it merged into Nicolet Industries, becoming its Sall Mountain Division.

Draft. The history on this page was written from the documents in our library and has not yet been reviewed by a person.

History

According to his 1932 obituary in Asbestos, the industry's trade journal, C. M. Clarke had worked as a superintendent for asbestos firms in Chicago and Milwaukee before he and C. E. Cook organized the Sall Mountain Asbestos Manufacturing Company in Chicago in 1899.¹ The obituary's heading names him C. M. Clarke but its text calls him C. E. Clarke; the company's 1920 letterhead names C. M. Clarke as president.¹¹⁰ The name was later changed to the Sall Mountain Company, and Clarke remained president until its reorganization in 1931.¹ The company shared its name with Sall Mountain in White County, Georgia, where, a 1927 Asbestos article said, deposits were developed in 1894 and from which most American asbestos production came until 1899.¹¹ A Sall Mountain letter of June 21, 1920, lists a factory at Gainesville, Georgia, and mines at Asbestos, Georgia, on its letterhead.¹⁰

The sources disagree on how far back the business went. A July 1925 advertisement spoke of "more than a quarter of a century of experience,"¹² which fits the 1899 date, but a 1952 advertisement spoke of a policy followed "for over 68 years," which would reach back to the 1880s.³ The obituary says Clarke first became interested in asbestos "nearly fifty years ago."¹

In 1913 the company acquired a mill property at Rockdale, Ohio, from the American Strawboard Company and began making asbestos paper there.⁴⁵ The 1920 letterhead calls the company "Manufacturers of Asbestos Materials and Roofings," with main offices on South La Salle Street in Chicago and factories at Porter, Indiana; Scranton, Pennsylvania; Rockdale, Ohio; and Gainesville, Georgia.¹⁰ An April 1920 advertisement lists factories at Porter, Chicago, Scranton and Rockdale.² In 1923 an advertisement added, "We also manufacture a complete line of Asphalt Roofing and Shingles,"¹³ and in 1927 the journal reported new salesmen in the Boston and New York offices selling both the company's asphalt shingles and roofings and its asbestos insulating materials.¹⁴

F. R. Anderson, a vice president of the company, was elected vice president of the Asbestos Paper Manufacturers Association in 1925.¹⁵ Grant V. Wilson started as a "paste boy" in the company's pipe covering factory, rose to production manager of its three plants and then vice president, and left in 1930 to found his own firm, Grant Wilson, Inc.¹⁶¹⁷ In October 1928 the company moved its general offices to the Midland Building, 176 West Adams Street, Chicago.¹⁸

Asbestos products

Sall Mountain sold its line under the Sal-Mo name.¹⁹ A 1921 advertisement offered Sal-Mo asbestos paper in rolls, a corrugated "Aircell" asbestos paper, and asbestos millboard in sheets 42 by 48 inches.¹⁹ In 1926 the company put a sticker on all its outgoing mail urging that covered pipes cut fuel costs, and offered the stickers free to anyone willing to use them.²⁰ A March 1952 advertisement, giving the address as Rockdale Lane, Hamilton, Ohio, listed Sal-Mo asbestos paper, pipe joint tape, rollboard, millboard, ductboard, air-cell paper and pipe coverings, wool and sponge felt pipe coverings, range boiler jackets, and furnace and boiler cements.³ An October 1955 advertisement added magnesia covering, asbestos cloth, wick and rope packings, and asbestos gaskets.²¹

The Rockdale mill

In September 1943 the warehouse and factory at Rockdale were destroyed by fire, with finished materials valued at $150,000 to $200,000 lost.²² A March 1955 profile in Asbestos said the plant had been "completely rebuilt in record time on high priorities because of the necessity of its products in war demands."⁵ The profile put the mill's daily capacity at "sixty to eighty tons of asbestos paper and board," said its asbestos fiber came from "the company's own mines in the Province of Quebec, Canada," and reported about 125 employees, most from Hamilton and Middletown.⁵ It also said the plant made asbestos gaskets for the automotive, heating and appliance trades, and named Ladd L. Wilson as president.⁵ The same issue reported that the mill had until then discharged waste water from its asbestos machines directly into the Great Miami River, and that a new treatment plant now recovered asbestos fiber that had been "lost to the sewer discharge."²³

What the documents show

The documents gathered for this entry are trade-journal news items, advertisements and one business letter; none of them discusses dust or workers' health at the company's plants. A 1980 Travelers Insurance Company booklet for an asbestos seminar, compiled from co-defendants' answers to interrogatories in California lawsuits, lists Sal-Mo Sixcell pipe and block insulation and Sal-Mo Woolfelt pipe covering under Nicolet, with "39" and "58" in its two date ("DT") columns; another page of the printout carries the note "NCLT PRODUCTS-SALL MOUNTAIN."²⁴ The covering memo cautioned that "some of it may be self-serving."²⁴ The booklet's computer printout is dated April 30, 1981, although the covering memo is dated March 1980.²⁴

Bankruptcy, reorganization and merger

In January 1932 Asbestos reported a notice soliciting bids for the assets of "the Sall Mountain Company (bankrupt)" of Chicago and Rockdale, Ohio.⁶ Two months later the journal reported that new capital had been put into the company and "the business continued without interruption," under the same management as before.⁷ The journal's review of 1932 said Sall Mountain had "secured fresh capital and is making progress."²⁵

In 1935 the company moved its New York office from 30 Broad Street to 70 Pine Street; the journal reported in the same issue that Nicolet Asbestos Mines Limited had made the same move, between the same two addresses.²⁶ In 1938 Guy George Gabrielson was listed as Sall Mountain's president, in New York City.²⁷ In 1950 the company elected Ladd Wilson of Oxford, Ohio, as president, with headquarters at "the new Sall Mountain Plant in Rockdale, Hamilton, Ohio"; he had joined the company in 1922.²⁸

The journal's review of 1956 called the merger of the Norristown Magnesia and Asbestos Co., the Sall Mountain Co. of Hamilton, Ohio, and the Valley Forge Metals Co. into Nicolet Industries, Inc. "the first important event of the year."⁸ A March 1956 notice listed the Sall Mountain Division, Hamilton, Ohio, as part of Nicolet Industries.⁹ No asbestos trust for Sall Mountain appears in our library; for the later story, see the Nicolet Industries entry.²⁹

References

1. Asbestos, November 1932, p. 15
2. Asbestos, April 1920, p. 21
3. Asbestos, March 1952, p. 25
4. Asbestos, December 1919, p. 16
5. Asbestos, March 1955, pp. 6, 8
6. Asbestos, January 1932, p. 49
7. Asbestos, March 1932, p. 46
8. Asbestos, December 1956, p. 6
9. Asbestos, March 1956, p. 50
10. Sall Mountain Company letter to Schenck Mfg. & Supply Co. requesting payment of overdue invoices (1920)
11. Asbestos, September 1927, p. 12
12. Asbestos, July 1925, p. 25
13. Asbestos, August 1923, p. 39
14. Asbestos, March 1927, p. 48
15. Asbestos, May 1925, p. 28
16. Asbestos, June 1930, p. 16
17. Asbestos, March 1940, p. 26
18. Asbestos, October 1928, p. 46
19. Asbestos, April 1921, p. 60
20. Asbestos, October 1926, p. 28
21. Asbestos, October 1955, p. 29
22. Asbestos, October 1943, p. 38
23. Asbestos, March 1955, pp. 4, 6
24. The Travelers Insurance Company's Product Information Booklet for Its Asbestos Seminar (1980–1981), pp. 1, 8, 18
25. Asbestos, December 1932, p. 12
26. Asbestos, May 1935, p. 36
27. Asbestos, May 1938, p. 35
28. Asbestos, June 1950, p. 48
29. Sall Mountain Company, company page

Asbestos products

1 product our documents name Sall Mountain Company as making or selling. Each product's page says what the documents say about it, including its asbestos content.

• Sal-Mo (Sall Mountain)

Plants

Plants where asbestos products were made that the documents say Sall Mountain Company ran.

• Sall Mountain Co. plant at Chicago, Illinois
• Sall Mountain Co. plant at Porter, Indiana
• Sall Mountain Co. plant at Rockdale, Ohio
• Sall Mountain Co. plant at Scranton, Pennsylvania
• Sall Mountain Company plant at Hamilton, Ohio

In our library

1 document in our library name Sall Mountain Company, by collection.

Other library documents (1)

• Sall Mountain Company letter to Schenck Mfg. & Supply Co. requesting payment of overdue invoices (1920) (publisher)

Where this comes from

This page brings together every document in our library that names Sall Mountain Company, across collections. Titles and affiliations are taken from the documents themselves, and units and subsidiaries are grouped under the company they belong to.