Milepost 539
When I attended college at Bluffton College (now Bluffton University) in Bluffton, Ohio, it was a rite of passage for Business Administration majors to spend time in Business Management Lab or BML. While sometime this meant working at a local bank or at the Triplett Meter Company, for most students, it was a semester or two at the Bluffton Slaw Cutter Company.
The Bluffton Slaw Cutter Company more affectionately known simply as "the plant" was owned by several local businessmen and one of our college professors, Dr. Howard Raid. "Doc" had convinced the local businessmen to buy into the idea of owning the company to serve as the first real business experience that many of the Business students ever had. It was quite a successful program and many students went to "the plant" during Dr. Raid's tenure at Bluffton.
The largest order of slaw cutters ever shipped was to the Jewel Tea Company and consisted of two carloads of slaw cutters! This was a huge order as the company typically had sales in the $12,000 - $15,000 range each year. But this was well before my time there so things might have been different. Anyway, the order was so big that it drew local attention and when the shipment was ready to go, the local newspaper (The Bluffton News) stopped to take a picture of the loaded boxcars before the shipment left town. That photo ended up on the wall of the office at the Slaw Cutter Company.
The picture is quite interesting for a variety of reasons... first, note the vertical brake stem on the car to the left. Note also that car is much older than the one on the right. The double doors are different and if I'm not mistaken, it would appear that car is a wood sheathed one. It also has my favorite small "ROAD' lettering scheme on it.
The car on the right has pressed steel doors and the more modern "Swinging R" lettering scheme. But it also appears to be not as tall as the one on the left so there is a real variety represented here. Note also that both cars are wooden.
The Slaw Cutter Company has since been sold to private owners who continue to run it yet today. The picture still hangs on the wall in the office. A special thanks to the current owners for providing me a scan of this very special (for a lot of reasons) photo.
dlm
Do you know the status of the Bluffton Slaw Cutter Company? I have one of their cutters and tried to call them but the phone number did not work. Their website is also defunct. Just curious.
Posted by: John Cole | January 10, 2013 at 05:03 PM