James H. Wellons and Hill-Standard Co.

My grandfather, Ralph Wellons, was a skilled tradesman who worked at the Delco-Remy Division of GM in Anderson. His father, James Harris Wellons, did work that looks somewhat similar. A couple of census reports have “Steelworker” listed as his occupation. One has “toy-maker”. Naturally, I became curious. And I noticed that one census listed his work location as “Hill-Standard”. Having never heard of this company, I googled it. And was surprised by what I found.

Hill Standard was a pretty big deal. Maybe it just got lost in the incredible growth of Remy Electric and then the combined Delco-Remy. I first found an article in a business statistics book published by the Standard Statistics Co. (not related to Hill-Standard). The book was entitled “Standard Corporation Service, Daily Revised”, and it essentially reported on various U.S, companies. This was the 1917 volume on page 177. It said that Hill-Standard, which was based in Anderson, had capital (assets) of $600,000 and had recently merged with the Hill-Cheesman company of Toledo. The capacity of the Anderson plant would be doubled as a result. New buildings would cost $40,000. They had orders for a million.... wait for it... wheels for children’s vehicles. The wheels were made of steel (steelworker) and were used for kid’s vehicles (toys).  They planned to branch out into the manufacture of wheels for farm machinery.

Then I found something in the Indiana Memory Collection of the Anderson Public Library. This is an online feature of the old “Indiana Room” which was always devoted to local history. There was a photograph of workers in the machine shop at Hill-Standard and the guy in the foreground looks suspiciously like my grandfather. Could it be his dad? Their was also an attached article from the Anderson Herald-Bulletin from May 23, 2010 which gives the history of Hugh Hill and the Hill-Standard Company. But wait, my grandpa Ralph had a younger brother named Hugh Hill Wellons! Unbelievable! My great grandfather named one of his sons after his boss. I also know from the 1920 census that Branson Harris Wellons, my grandfather’s oldest brother, was also working at the company. The two salaries probably allowed the large Wellons family to survive.

Hugh Hill grew up in Anderson after moving there in 1864 when he was 2 years old and graduated from Anderson High School. His father was a partner in a foundry business. Hugh worked for various machinery companies in the Midwest before returning to Anderson in 1888. He designed several inventions, such as pumps and tools and set up a company called Hill Tool in 1900. In 1902 he designed a toy car that was similar to a railroad push car, only on wheels. He called it the Irish Mail, after the fastest train in the world at the time. The company started selling them and bought parts from others. In 1910, the company started to manufacture their own toy wheels. Other models followed and they just kept branching out to other kinds of toy vehicles and eventually other kinds of playground equipment. The company grew and had branch factories in Kokomo and Toledo. Their products sold worldwide. The heyday was the 1920’s, but it did not survive the depression. (Lots of perfectly sound companies did not survive the depression.) Hugh Hill died in 1948. The Irish Mail is a collectible today.