Category Archives: Businesses

Marion Businesses

Egyptian Powder Company

Posted on by February 17, 2014

Egyptian Powder Company
Egyptian Powder Company
Egyptian Powder Company
Egyptian Powder Company
Egyptian Powder Company

The Egyptian Powder Company was a post turn of the century business that was the first known to manufacture explosives in Southern Illinois. It cranked out kegs of blasting powder for local and national mines, employed as many as 70 people, became part of the Olin empire and was a downright dangerous place to work.

Though at this point in time, the original owners of the Egyptian Powder Company are unknown, it is known that the company started producing blasting powder for coal mine operation in 1904. An article found in the March 12th, 1904, Carbondale Free Press stated, “The first shipment of powder from the Egyptian Powder Company was made Thursday. This is probably the first powder ever shipped from Southern Illinois. It consisted of 200 kegs. The plant from which it was shipped is situated midway between Marion and Carterville.” Continue reading →

Kaeser Lumber Company

Posted on by February 10, 2014

In 1930, at the beginning of the great depression, Fred Kaeser purchased the old Stotlar-Herrin Lumber Company business located at 602 N. Market Street and re-named it Kaeser Lumber Company. He accomplished this with the help of his sons, Walter and Albert, who helped run the business and his daughter, Katherine Barbara Kaeser who served as the bookkeeper for thirty years before returning to college and earning a degree in elementary education. Continue reading →

Miller, Ray 1891-1977, Miller Abstract & Title Insurance

Posted on by September 18, 2023

Ray Miller 1891-1977Ray Miller, teacher, principal, county officer, and a second generation Fair Board member, was born on April 26, 1891 in Williamson County to John Goodall Miller and Mary Ellen Krantz on a farm in Southern Township.

Nine years after Ray was born, according to the 1900 federal census, the family was living in Southern Precinct on the Miller family farm which they owned free of mortgage. Southern Township/Precinct starts just north of the Marion City Lake and included the villages of Hudgens and Chamness, extending south to Pulley’s Mill where Johnson County starts. Ray’s parents were farmers and were both in their mid-30’s. Children present in the home at the time were Ray aged 9 and daughter, Jessie M. aged 6. Ray’s mother indicated that she had birthed three children with two surviving indicating the loss of one child already in their marriage. Continue reading →

Dunaway, Samuel L. 1895-1976, Dunaway Insurance Agency

Posted on by April 22, 2014

Samuel L Dunaway 1895-1976Samuel Lum Dunaway, Marion businessman, civic leader, WWI veteran and grandson of early county pioneer Sam Dunaway, was born on April 12, 1895, in Marion to Thomas Dunaway and Emma Benson.

Sam descended from one of the families that lived at Old Bainbridge, the village that served as the seat of county government, west of Marion, prior to creation of the county seat in Marion.

His father, Thomas Dunaway, retired Marion merchant, who died in 1921, was the son of Samuel Dunaway, one of the settlers of Bainbridge. Thomas Dunaway was born near that pioneer village in 1848, the last of 15 children in the family. Continue reading →