Veeder Broom Company

(compiled from the 1901 Herald and from other accounts by Carol A. Lackey)

In 1876 the Veeder Broom factory was erected on Oak Street.

The building which stood on Oak Street directly to the west end of Marion Street was torn down in 1974.

The Veeder Broom Company started business in Hillsdale in 1873. C.S. Veeder started making brooms in the bedroom of his house located on the sire where the Worthing & Alger Company’s building stood. The next year Mr. Veeder moved to a home on State Street and continued his broom making in a barn. In 1876 he erected a frame structure 14 x 20 feet on Oak Street and after that built six additions. His businesses was then housed in a frame building 56 x 44 feet. The building was the first structure erected in the vicinity east of Vine Street but was later in the center of a residential section.

The factory gave employment to nine men and over $6,000 was paid out in wages every year. The products marketed totaled over $25,000 a year. The sales territory embraced an area of about 100 miles radius from Hillsdale. The supply of broom corn came mainly from Illinois. Ten grades of brooms were manufactured, ranging from the light house broom to the heavy stable article.

Mr. Veeder bough our the Hillsdale Broom Company plant and thus had a large field free of competition from local factories.

Lewis Pauken was the last owner of the factory. He made brooms for a number of years in the old building.