Soulé Steam Feed Works facts for kids
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Soulé Steam Feed Works
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U.S. Historic district
Contributing property |
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Main factory in 2010
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 Location in Mississippi
Location in the United States
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| Location | 1806–1808 4th St and 1803–1809 5th St, Meridian, Mississippi |
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| Built | 1891 |
| Part of | Union Station Historic District (ID79003731) |
| MPS | Meridian MRA |
Quick facts for kids Significant dates |
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| Designated CP | December 18, 1979 |
Soulé Steam Feed Works is an old business that started in Meridian, Mississippi in 1892. It was founded by George Soulé. This place is so important that it's listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is also a Mississippi Landmark. The company was famous for its new ideas in steam engines. Its products were sold all over the world, especially around the early 1900s.
Since 2004, the Mississippi Industrial Heritage Museum has been located here. The museum holds a fun event every year called the Soulé Live Steam Festival. Thousands of people from all over the country come to see it.
Contents
Meet George Soulé, the Founder
George Wilberforce Soulé was born in Buffalo, New York in 1849. He was a descendant of an earlier George Soule who came to America on the Mayflower ship. When he was one year old, George and his father moved to Wisconsin. At 20, his father died, and George decided to start his own life.
Even though he only had a little bit of school, he worked as a teacher for three months. Then, in 1875, he moved south to Morton, Mississippi. He had missed a ship to Cuba and ended up staying in Mississippi. He later moved his businesses to Meridian in 1879.
Before starting Soulé Steam Feed Works, George Soulé had other companies. These included a turpentine business, a lumber company, and a cotton gin. He also made his own cotton press, which was simpler and cheaper than others. He called it the Southern Standard Cotton Press. In 1881, his company sold 750 of these presses across the South.
George Soulé sold his cotton press company in 1886. He then started Progress Manufacturing and invented the Ideal Hay-Press. This new business grew to have a foundry and a machine shop. In 1888, he started working on a small rotary engine. He sold Progress Manufacturing in 1891 and then started Steam Feed Works. The business officially became a company in 1893. George Soulé invented over 40 things in his life, including a machine to hull cotton seeds and an improved sugar mill.
In 1902, when Steam Feed Works was doing very well, George Soulé bought a home in Santa Rosa County, Florida. He started letting his son, Clyde, manage more of the company. George spent more time in Florida until he returned to Meridian in 1917. He passed away there in 1922. He had two wives and nine children. One of his grandchildren, also named George Soulé, became a famous R&B songwriter.
The Steam Feed Works Factory
The Historic Buildings
The Soulé Steam Feed Works factory was first located at 25th Avenue and 5th Street. The main building on the current site was built between 1890 and 1892. It used to be the Meridian Candy Factory. After a fire damaged it, George Soulé bought it. He turned it into a machine shop, assembly area, and office.
The outside of the two-story building was originally brick. Later, layers of lime cement stucco were added. Inside, there is a fireproof vault that is 8-by-12-foot (2.4 m × 3.7 m). This vault holds the company's original records. It was added after a fire in 1895 destroyed George Soulé's office and his records.
A second building was added next to the original one in 1907. The downstairs of the first building became a mill supply store. Machines inside are powered by a 100-foot (30 m) line shaft. This shaft is the longest operating one in the country. It was powered by an electric motor from the 1920s.
The building also has a blacksmith shop with two forges. These are also powered by the line shaft. A special wooden elevator moved finished parts upstairs for assembly. It then brought finished products back down. A system of rails and cranes helped move heavy items easily. This system could move things to the foundry (built in 1917), the machine shop, and out to the street.
The second floor has a steam engine factory. It has another 25-foot (7.6 m) shaft driven by the main shaft downstairs. Fans were attached to this smaller shaft to keep the area cool in summer.
In 1907, Soulé had 46 employees. By 1917, this number dropped to 31 because of World War I. After the war, the number of employees grew again. Between 1922 and 1945, there were usually about 50 workers.
A third building, the foundry, was added in 1917. More parts were added from 1923 to 1925. A special furnace called a cupola furnace was used to melt iron. A newer electric furnace was added in the 1970s. Both furnaces are still there and can be used. Two more buildings were added in the 1920s for storage.
After World War II, the company focused on local sales. The upstairs of the original building became storage in the 1950s. The Mississippi Industrial Heritage Museum took over the building in 2003. They have restored it to look mostly like it did in the 1920s.
Amazing Inventions and Products
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The company is best known for helping the lumber industry. This industry was very big from about 1885 to the 1930s. Back then, steam was the best way to power machines that could be moved around. The Soulé Rotary Steam Engine was invented in 1896. This engine was used from 1892 to 1922 to power sawmill carriages. These carriages helped feed lumber into a spinning saw blade.
The engine could also power winches to load and unload logs from trains and wagons. The factory built 2,300 of these engines. They were sold all over the world. Some are still used today in Australia and India. They were also sold in South Africa, Cuba, Mexico, and many other countries. People said these engines were "the most durable and easily controlled." But they also called them "steam hogs" because they used a lot of steam.
In 1922, the Soulé Spee-D-Twin was designed. This was a two-cylinder steam engine that was much more efficient. It became very popular with sawmill operators. It had a special valve that let the engine go forward and backward. Its small size meant it could be added to existing sawmill carriages. The factory could make one Spee-D-Twin every day. Between 1923 and 1984, the company sold 4,301 Spee-D-Twins. They were sold in all fifty states and other countries.
Soulé Steam Feed Works also invented the Simplex Automatic Lumber Edge Stacker in 1897. This machine helped stack lumber automatically. The first one was installed in a mill in Lumberton, Mississippi in 1895. More than 100 were installed across the nation.
Other products included the St. Bernard Saw Mill Dog. This allowed mills to get lumber from both large and small logs. An employee named A.D. Hunter invented a way to refuel planes in the air. This was used during Fred and Al Key's record-breaking flight in 1935. Another employee, David Stephenson, made the aluminum walkway used on the plane during that flight.
The Soulé Live Steam Festival
Since October 2003, the Mississippi Industrial Heritage Museum has hosted the Soulé Live Steam Festival. This festival shows off the history of steam engines. The company was very famous for these engines. The festival has grown every year. It is the only steam show in the United States held at a real steam engine factory.
The 2008 festival brought almost 2,000 people from 10 states to Meridian. A Watts-Campbell Corliss steam engine from 1905 was given to the museum that year. The museum also owns the very last steam engine ever built by the company.
The 2009 festival attracted thousands of visitors from 15 states and one foreign country. This event was also made longer, lasting two days. During the festival, the Watts-Campbell Corliss engine was shown working. An 1870 Manchester engine was also demonstrated. Other steam engines were brought by visitors and put on display. A portable sawmill was also shown working.
Other demonstrations at the festival include blacksmithing, broom-making, and pottery wheel demonstrations. There is also an antique print shop. Many displays at the festival have working machines. They blow whistles, let out steam, and cut logs.
