The following piece is something I wrote for a Facebook Group of which I am a part.  The group is called “Memories of Growing Up in Mexico, Missouri”.    And I did. (grow up in Mexico).     Much of the conversation in that group has to do with folks sharing memories about things they did as kids, what the town was like back then, remembering individuals who were a part of our collective childhoods.  At least a few of us on there also talk about interesting parts of Mexico history.

We were discussing on that group some of the history of the Fire Brick industry in Missouri, and specifically why there was an OLD refractories products company in Mexico called the “salamander works”.  And noting that according to old newspaper clippings at the Library of Congress website, the Vandalia fire brick plant around the turn of the last century was actually formally named the Vandalia Salamander Works.   (It’s not important here, but a “salamander ” in this usage is apparently both the iron slug that collects at the bottom of a blast furnace, and later it actually came to refer to the brick piece at the bottom of the furnace that collects that slug.) 

In researching all of this, I started thinking about A.P. Green, the man, and his legacy in Mexico.   The AP Green Company was for many, many years the biggest employer in Mexico, and for those of us who grew up there, “The Plant” impacted our lives in so very many ways.    

Hope you enjoy this, even if you’re not from Mexico, Missouri.  

All this talk about Fire Brick companies, Salamanders, etc has gotten me thinking about “Mr. Green” and his legacy in Mexico.  As the new century turned, Allen Percival Green was working in Pittsburgh, PA for the Harbison-Walker Company in sales.  He was a mere 25 years old.   In 1904 he was offered and seized the opportunity to move back to Missouri from Pennsylvania, to accept the job as Vice President and General Manager of the Evens & Howard – Cheltenham plant in St. Louis, pictured here. (below). He was all of 29 years old!  He had been married for just one year to the former Sara Josephine Brown.  At that time, Evens & Howard was one of the top refractories operations in the country. 133 acres, over 30 downdraft kilns, and a reputation for making some of the finest refractory products on the market.

 

In 1910, Mr. Green visited Mexico on a business trip for Evens and Howard. He saw the Mexico Fire Brick plant.  By contrast to E&H, this Mexico plant was a TINY operation. With relatively few kilns, on a MUCH smaller property and just a fraction of the workforce of E&H.  Additionally, the Mexico plant apparently had a reputation in the industry that wasn’t all that great. An article published inthe Missouri Geological Survey of 1896, outlining the refractories industry across the state of Missouri said that the machine-made bricks from the Mexico plant “didn’t inspire confidence”.

So my question is this:   What was it that Allen Percival Green actually SAW in the Mexico Plant that made him go back to the owners at Evens & Howard and suggest they immediately buy the small Mexico operation? And even MORE remarkably, when they refused to take that advice, what was it that made him at the age of 35, with a young wife and family, take nearly every penny he’d saved, and leave a “Cadillac” operation in St. Louis to buy this small factory and move to Mexico to take over the plant?  A plant that within just a few years would bear his name.

Certainly it must have been due in part the stellar quality of the local clay, and the fact that it could so (relatively) easily and cheaply be excavated by surface operations. It is difficult to believe though, that the quality and availability of the clay was ALL of his reasoning behind such a bold move.   Perhaps I’m wrong, but given the evidence of the first few years after he’d relocated to Mexico, I’d also like to think it had to do with what he saw in our town itself, and in the character of her people.

Why else would he take the lion’s share of his profits and dividends from the company in those early years and pour them back into the development and expansion of the local plant? And not just the plant, but also into the town itself.  Why would he become an active and engaged civic leader in arenas far beyond the brick-yard?  He was, within a year or two of relocating here, a leader in the Mexico Commercial Club.  In that role he actively helped other local business leaders learn to expect excellence in their own operations. He was a member of the school board. He was an early and instrumental advocate for getting a “Farm Agent” in Mexico, a man who was a paid representative of the Department of Agriculture. A man whose  job was to help local farmers run better, more profitable and productive farms, in order to raise the overall quality of farm operations in the county.  Why else does Mr. Green’s name appear over and over and over in the papers in those early years after his acquisition of “the plant” whenever some initiative to make Mexico a better town was afoot. He obviously loved his new town, and did all he could to help her grow and succeed.

No doubt he had his faults.  We all do.  But at least through the lens of history, his contributions to making Mexico what it was in its heyday of the last century are nothing less than utterly remarkable. By taking a small and unremarkable factory, and growing it into a world leader in its industry, and one that employed or otherwise supported so many of us or our friends and family, truly was a success story the likes of which is not often seen. It’s the quintessential American success story. He was obviously a visionary of extraordinary measure.

Certainly there were other civic leaders of note in Mexico, both before and after Mr. Green, and those of you who live or grew up there could no doubt name several of them.  A stroll through the more historic sections of Elmwood Cemetery reading names on the gravestones would quickly remind you.   We owe ALL of them a debt of gratitude.

None of us can know what Mexico might have been like if Mr. Green had taken to heart the “no” answer from the owners back at Evens & Howard when he proposed they purchase the Mexico Fire Brick Company, and just quietly gone about doing his job back in St. Louis. But to his great credit, and to our good fortune, he saw something better in a remarkable little town in the middle of a sea of farmland. He saw something better, and worked to make that vision a reality.

Mr. Green died the year before I was born. I never met him, but I surely have felt his legacy over and over and over again through the years. I felt it each morning when my dad headed off to “the plant”, and I could feel the pride he took in a “job well done.” I felt it on late night trips to the plant with my dad to check on something his department was working on.  I felt it as I wandered the Green Estate on my bike, or by foot late at night (shhhhh!).   I felt it when I’d go swimming or fishing at “the pits”.  I felt it in later years, each time I’d smile and say that Mexico was the “Fire Brick & Saddle Horse Capital of the World”. (wink, wink … the “Mexico Mantra”).  And I still feel it today when I think back on how lucky I was to grow up in a small town that embodied so many notions we have of the perfect and idyllic childhood.  It wasn’t Mayberry.  But it was darn close in a lot of ways.

I live 450 miles away these days in TN, and have lived here now for longer than I lived in Mexico. But Mexico IS and always WILL be “home”, and for that I am truly proud. Thinking back to those 18 formative years that I lived in Mexico and remembering the good times with smiles and laughter is a truly joyful thing.  Maybe I’m just being wistful for days gone by, but I’d sure like to believe that a little of whatever spark, whatever potential, whatever intriguing and enticing draw that Mr. Green felt 103 years ago back in 1910 still lives in our town.  I believe that spark lives in each of you. I can feel it when you write here about your childhood. I can feel it when we think about “the square” or “the fair” or Kwikis or Bellos or the Soybean Festival or …. on and on and on. I think maybe it’s why we have this group, and why we have named it as we have.

I travel through a lot of small towns.   One thing is obvious.  The world is a difficult place for small towns these days.  It’s not *just* that the “Walmarts” of the world have led to the decline of the town square, and business districts all across our country, though that is certainly true.  It’s not just that large chain supermarkets have led to the extinction of the Mom & Pop neighborhood grocery stores, though sadly, those small stores are almost completely gone.    It’s also that in some very profound and fundamental way, young people these days seem to have much less desire to stay in our small towns.  So seldom do you see examples of the sort of drive and vision that Mr. Green and people like him had to help make their communities (and by extension, our country) thrive.   At the very least, it’s safe to say the world in 2013 is a completely different place for small towns than it was back in 1910.   Even so, I’d like to think that places like Mexico still have their best days ahead of them.  You see it in the new merchants, specialty shops, and restaurants that are slowly starting to repopulate the storefronts around the Mexico square and in towns like it around the country.  I’m thankful for the progressive and bold leadership of merchants, business owners and citizens who try to have a vision of something better for their communities.  My prayer is that their vision continues to gather steam, and to bring back a little of what was nearly lost.   If you try real hard, I think you can see glimpses that such a reality just might be possible.

If you’re still reading along, thanks for indulging me. Hope to see you “on the square” one of these days …. all revitalized and thriving once again. Maybe we’ll stop in one of those new businesses to get a cup and coffee and a piece of pie, and to chat about what an amazing little town Mexico is.  Again.

I think that would make Mr. Green and those who have shared in his legacy really happy.