[Men loading machines at McFadden Coffee & Spice Company]

[Men loading machines at McFadden Coffee & Spice Company]

Photographer unknown

Four men are working on the upper floor of a warehouse building of the McFadden Coffee & Spice Company. One man appears to be servicing a large machine. Behind this man are three hoppers full of spices, or perhaps different kinds of tea or coffee. The hoppers have small wheels on the bottom and run on tracks. Another man is using levers attached to the hoppers to tip one of them on its side into a partially visible hole in the floor. Similar covered holes are partially visible under adjacent hoppers. A light-colored, concrete post extending vertically from the floor to the ceiling is visible, as is ductwork for an exhaust system leading to a large covered fan venting through an upper wall near some roof-mounted windows. In the rear of the image, two men are visible. One is pushing a cart filled with large bags of coffee, tea or spices. The number “60” has been written on the emulsion side of the negative and is visible in the upper right corner of the picture. The number “4” is written in the upper left corner.

Spices
Dubuque (Iowa) -- Pictorial works
William J. Klauer Collection
Glass negatives
Itinerant photographers

The Center for Dubuque History, Loras College, 1450 Alta Vista Street, Dubuque, Iowa 52001

Digital image captured using a Microtek ScanMaker 8700 with transparent media adapter. TIFF file created from a glass plate negative scanned in 16 - bit grey scale at 1200 ppi.

Contact The Center for Dubuque History at Loras College, 1450 Alta Vista Street, Dubuque, Iowa 52001 or call (563) 588-7100 © 2013 LORAS COLLEGE

William J. Klauer Collection

Still image

1912-05/06

KL 020-083

This record is part of the William J. Klauer Collection held by The Center for Dubuque History, Loras College, Dubuque, Iowa.

1st and Iowa Streets, Dubuque, Iowa

According to an Historic American Buildings Survey, HABS IA-160-H, (www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ia0285/) “James and Edward McFadden formed the McFadden Brothers Grocery and Provisions Store in 1884 on the southwest corner of Fifth and Main streets. Two years later they … formed the McFadden Coffee and Spice Company with Joseph McFadden and John A. McKinlay to import, manufacture and import coffee, ground spices, coconut, chocolate, hops, soap and baking powder. After an initial period of hardship, the company began a period of continuous expansion …. McFadden shortly thereafter added tea to its product line and took over the plant of the Pritchard Buggy Top Company.... As the McFadden company expanded its sales rapidly throughout Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Dakotas during the 1890s, the firm moved into the double store of the defunct Mitchell Tranfer [sic] House and then occupied three more buildings. In December 1902 the McFadden Coffee and Spice Company was incorporated with a capitalization of $100,000. With James McFadden as president and Joseph McFadden as secretary, the firm was finally able to consolidate its operation on October 1, 1910, when it moved into [an] immense factory and warehouse - "a model of perfection," according to a 1911 Dubuque business gazetteer. Built at a time in which reinforced concrete frame construction for buildings was beginning to gain rapidly in popularity, the McFadden Factory and Warehouse is architecturally significant as a novel and innovative foray into the new use of a material: [concrete, and] one of Dubuque's earliest truly fireproof buildings. It is historically significant for its association with the McFadden Coffee and Spice Company, a successful representative of one of the city's secondary industries.”