Close up of above photograph:

Corning, AR.   Workers of the Southern Cooperage Company.   “Mrs. Margaret Lumpkins, R1, Stillman Valley, ILL 61089, phone 1-645-8862”.

Corning's Pioneer Industry

"This early 80's [sic] photograph of the employees and owner of the Couthern [sic] Cooperage Co. showed up from Illinois.  The history of Northeast Arkansas, published in 1889, contained a biography of H. H. Weindel, seated at the left of his employees.  Weindell, a manufacturer of all kinds of staves, headings also lumber and cooperage, had on hands [sic] four to five million staves.  The Southern Cooperage was the largest factory in Northeast Arkansas and paid out around $5,000 per month for labor.  The factory was organist in St. Louis by L. Weindel in 1862 and moved to Corning just as soon as the Iron Mountain Railroad was completed in 1873."

Submitted by Danny Moore