RICHMOND, Ind. – Richmond is steeped in agricultural history and the Gaar Scott & Co. and the Hill Roses story are combined through family connections.

 

The Gaar Company Story

The steam engine company began as the A. Gaar Co. Eventually Abram Gaar and William Scott joined to form Gaar Scott & Co., which built portable steam engines, steam traction plowing engines, clover hurlers, sawmills and threshers.

The successful company shipped products all over the world until December 1911, when the M. Rumley Co. of LaPorte, Ind., bought the Gaar Scott & Co. By 1915, the rest of the Gaar Scott & Co. was combined to form the Advanced Rumley Thresher Co.

Today, most of the buildings from the Gaar Scott & Co. are gone, but the corporate office building survives and is currently the office of the Richmond Baking Co. The building is in the historic Depot District.

The Gaar family story unfolds in a book by Joanna Hill Mikesell and Annette S. Warfel, “The Gaar Family Pioneers of Industry, Richmond, Indiana.” The book shares a bit of the story of the Gaar family who emigrated from Bavaria to the U.S. in 1732. They settled in Madison County, Va., and later made their way to Kentucky. Abram Gaar, his wife Dinah and their children arrived in Wayne County, Ind., in 1807.

Abram, who started the company, is mentioned early in the book as “a natural born mechanic.” 

The family began development of a threshing machine, dubbed, “the ground hog” in 1841. According to Johanna Hill Mikesell, “Some believe the ground hog may have been the first thresher built in Indiana. However, others claim Elias Pym Fordham built a thresher in 1819 in what is now known as New Harmony, Ind. …. The important fact is that the rudimentary ground hog was the forerunner of the machines that would make the Gaars famous.”

By 1850, Abram was president of the company, John Milton who now went by J.M., was treasurer and William G. Scott was secretary. Jonas served as a partner with no official title. The company was growing. They expanded their factory in 1851 and again in 1852, soon adding portable steam engines to their product line. In 1856, another building was added then two years later destroyed by fire but was quickly rebuilt. Railroads made it so products could be shipped nationwide.

The company’s stiffest competition was the locally made Robinson Machine Works, who built threshing machines, engines, sawmills and other machinery. The competition spurred the A. Gaar & Co./Gaar, Scott & Co. to work harder and they created a Pitts Grain Separator that won a United States Agricultural Society award a gold medal in 1860. This medal is on display at the Gaar Homestead just outside of Richmond.

The 1870s were good times for the Gaar family as business expanded to orders from California, and they thrived though others had hard economic times. The Gaar plant expanded again in 1878. The 1880s brought more economic success with overseas orders being recorded. With the 1890s, hard times arrived with the Panic of ’93.

Everything started good with orders of wind stackers made for Rumley & Co., of LaPorte, Ind. On April 1, 1892, they shipped what was deemed as “The largest piece of agricultural machinery ever turned out in this country, which means the largest built on Earth.”

The piece was an engine so big it would hardly fit on a rail freight car. With business high, plans were made for a big new foundry. Not long after the new building was built, layoffs came with crop failures and another economic panic. Management changed and they kept going as banks failed. Strikes and President Theodore Roosevelt’s anti-trust laws all had a negative effect leading to the sale in 1912 to Rumley.

The roses part of the story

Around the same time that the Gaar Scott & Co. was taking off, Hill Roses was started by Edward Gurney, better known as E.G. Hill, in 1893. He founded the company along with his father Joseph, and they were so successful that Richmond was called, “The Rose City.” For years, the town celebrated an annual Rose Festival.

Two greenhouses were built on East Main Street. In 1893, after the company incorporated and expanded, they built large greenhouses at what is now the beautiful Richmond Rose Garden in Glen Miller Park. In the Richmond Business and Industry information online, they share, “Although remembered mostly for roses, the E.G. Hill Co. also won awards for growing many flowers, including carnations, chrysanthemums and geraniums. In 1903, the ever-expanding company tried to buy land from the city in adjoining Glen Miller Park, but the city refused. Instead of leaving Richmond, Hill began building greenhouses on the west side of town near Easthaven Hospital, now the Richmond State Hospital.”

Joseph Hill, E.G.’s son, joined the company when he was 21, and by 1916 he decided to start his own company. The Joseph H. Hill Co. The Richmond Business and Industry information online, adds, “Just like his father, Joseph created many new types of award-winning roses and grew them for the commercial market. He was also an astute businessman who devised many innovations in the flower business.”

Perhaps most notable was his suggestion in 1925 that he and his father, plus his two brothers-in-law, Fred Lemon and Earl Mann, formed a distribution company that would market and distribute the products of all their greenhouses. This company was Hill Floral Products Company. The floral industry suffered during the Great Depression, in part because there was no standard red rose that was profitable to grow. That was until Joseph Hill developed a new red rose that had all the best qualities. Appropriately named the Better Times Rose, it provided florists nationwide with a much-needed new source of income and helped many survive the depression.

Surviving the depression, the rose business grew and by 1944 over 1.25 million square feet of glass greenhouses housed the rose empire along with over 1,000 acres of Indiana countryside.  In recognition of his community involvement, Joe Hill was sometimes addressed as, “Mr. Richmond.”

Hills Roses was known for its hybridized roses like Madame Butterfly, Columbia and General McArthur. When E.G. Hill passed in 1933, Richmond dedicated a fountain to him in Glen Miller Park.

Hills eventually stopped operations in 1993, more than 100 years after they began. The greenhouses were leased to hold poinsettia and bedding plants. The business is now owned by a descendant of the Hill family, the Mann family.  Almost all the 40 acres of greenhouses have been torn down.

The Gaar (and Hill) Homestead

Outside the city is the historic Gaar homestead built by Agnes and Abram Gaar.  Abram had served as the president of the Gaar Scott & Co. in 1876. The lovely Second Empire Victorian style house was designed by John A. Hasecoster and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The original blueprints for the house are on linen sheets and are displayed in the house. The home is filled with the original family furniture and heirlooms. The house cost $20,000 to build and took eight months to construct.

Today the property is owned and operated by the Gaar Foundation Inc. board of directors. The steam engine and rose connection formed when Joe Hill married Lucille Gaar and the couple lived in the homestead.  Lucille is Abram Gaar’s granddaughter, E.G. Hill was her father-in-law.

In an attached barn, there are several examples of Gaar Scott equipment including an 1870 Gaar Steam engine, corn sheller, company awards and more. The Gaar Homestead is a historical treasure with generations of history that combines the fascinating story of both steam engines and roses that once thrived and made Richmond what it is today.