Curtis Woodwork established 1866

              Everett Streit chronicled the history of the Curtis Company in a 1989 article for the Clinton Herald.
              The Curtis Company was established in 1866 when Charles F. Curtis arrived in Clinton and
              purchased a small sash and door mill that had five employees.  He was soon joined by his older
              brother George M. in this new business.  The small company managed to survive stiff competition
              because of an innovative step in the manufacture of sash.  At that time all sash were sold without
              glass.  It was up to the buyer to obtain the glass and putty from other sources and the contractor
              then had to do the glazing.  The Curtis brothers  developed the idea of glazing the sash in the
              mill.  Business boomed and the company moved to larger quarters.  This was just the first of
              many improvements made by the Curtis company in the production of doors, windows, woodwork,
              and cabinets.  As business grew branch plants were established in Wisconsin, Minnesota,
              Nebraska, and Oklahoma.  The company is an excellent example of the industrial diversification
              that was taking place in Clinton as the lumber industry was declining.  In addition to making the
              various wood components necessary for house construction, the Curtis Service Bureau began
              publishing the Better Built Homes catalogs which featured plans which could be ordered by
              mail.  New York architects Trowbridge and Ackerman designed a series of small houses for the
              Curtis catalogs. Each could be built of standard materials in stock sizes, including of course,
             Curtis Woodwork. In the middle of the Great Depression Curtis introduced the "Silentite" double
              hung window, which they claimed was the first major improvement in double hung windows in
              over a century. The company was one of the first to set up extensive research and development
              departments. When aluminum and stainless steel began to replace wooden building materials,
              demand for Curtis products dropped. But the end of the company was caused not by competition,
              but by nature. In 1965 the Mississippi River flood waters swept through the plant, damaging
              buildings and materials. In 1966, after a century of doing business in Clinton, the company closed.
 

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