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Clark Metal Last Last Days

 
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mistux
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Joined: 25 Jun 2004
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Location: South Bend, Indiana USA

PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2007 3:15 pm    Post subject: Clark Metal Last Last Days Reply with quote

Mishawaka shoe form maker won't last much longer 105-year-old business closed two months ago, will be torn down for underpass.

The reality of their situation hasn't sunk in yet for Joe and Bob Weber.

Their company, Clark Metal Last Inc., closed Jan. 1, but they have been too busy cleaning out the place to think about it being gone.

Clark Metal has been a Mishawaka business for 105 years. But it is in the way now of the planned Canadian National Railroad underpass, so the building has to go.

The Weber brothers said they plan to have everything out by June 1. Whatever can't be sold will be scrapped.

But you can't just throw history on the scrap heap.George Clark started the business in 1902 in his garage. He made lasts -- the metal forms used in shoemaking to form footwear.

Ball Band, which eventually morphed into Uniroyal Inc., was an early customer. Ball Band sneakers were shaped on the aluminum forms made by Clark Metal Last.

By 1910, Clark's business had outgrown his home. He relocated to 1101 N. Main St., where it has been ever since.

It's the kind of nondescript building you can drive past every day without a second thought about what goes on inside.

Clark was married to an aunt of George Weber, who joined the company in 1950. George Weber started to buy the company in 1951 and paid it off in 1965.Clark Metal Last reached its peak in the 1940s, Joe said, when it made lasts for companies that made boots for the military. It had 45 employees then.

Making the lasts, like any foundry job, is hot, dirty work. Aluminum is heated to about 1,200 degrees, then poured into a sand mold to get a casting. Rough spots are ground off before the lasts are finished.

When the demand for lasts started to flag in the early 1970s, the company branched out to make other kinds of castings, including parts for generators, electrical control boxes, industrial vacuum cleaners and automotive mirror mounts.Customers ranged from local firms to companies in Canada and as far away as New Zealand.

Joe can't seem to envision how his life will change when he walks out of the building for the last time, much less when it is torn down.

"This place has been here my whole life,'' said Joe, who will turn 45 in May.

Will he miss it?

"Once it's closed and I don't have an office to go to,'' he said, "then I'll decide if I miss it.''Bob, who will be 48 later this year, said he hasn't thought about what he will do next.

In the meantime, he's going through the inventory to sort it between items that can be sold and items that should be scrapped.

Are they finding anything historical or of antique value?

Everything is historical or antique, Joe answered with a laugh.

"We're finding things we don't even know what they are,'' he admitted.George, their father, is retired now and spends his winters in Florida. He's not here to supervise the death of his company.

Joe, the company president, said he spent a short time as an investment adviser after graduating from college, but then returned to the family business.

Bob said he started working there while he was in high school and has been there ever since. He once thought about bringing his son into the business, Bob said, but that is no longer an option.

Joe said they would have liked to keep the business open at another location, but the city wasn't willing to help. He said he even had found another place that could have housed Clark Metal Last. The city, he said, didn't offer him enough to buy the other building and move.

City Engineer Gary West declined last week to disclose the price paid for Clark Metal Last, or for the North Side Feed Store, which is right across the street. North Side Feed, a 112-year-old business, will close at the end of April.Joe said the city placed a confidentiality stipulation in the sales agreement, so he can't reveal the price he was paid. West said the price for each of the two businesses was less than $1 million.

The city will assume control June 1 of both the Clark building and North Side Feed. Both will be torn down shortly afterward.
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