A Part Of Lockport Industrial History
Commentary By Clarence
"Dutch" Adams
Photos from The Lockport Page Files
The Upson Company had its beginning in 1910. The Upson family had actually come to Lockport in 1880. William H. Upson worked as an agent for the Erie Railroad. In 1895 Charles and W. Edward Upson, sons of William, established the Upson Brothers Company, dealers in bicycles. In 1889 the bicycle store closed, W. Edward Upson opened a store selling cameras and photographic supplies and Charles Upson was employed at Niagara Paper Mills. Charles eventually became manager of the mill, then was employed at Tonawanda Board & Paper Company as assistant to the president, and then with the Beaverboard Company of Buffalo as general manager.
W. Harrison Upson, younger brother of Charles and W. Edward, was also employed at the Niagara Paper Mills. Charles had developed ideas on producing a better and more dependable wallboard than was being produced at that time so in 1910 he and W. Harrison Upson began the organization of t Upson Company. The first Board of Directors of the company consisted of Charles A. Upson, William H. Upson, Sr., William H. Upson, Jr., W. Edward Upson, and Ralph M. Snell. The first officers of the company were President Charles A. Upson, Vice President William H. Upson, Sr., Secretary William Harrison Upson, Jr., and Treasurer W. Edward Upson.
In February 1911, the company signed a lease for the former Franklin Mill building at Spring and Garden Streets in Lowertown. There were several scattered buildings with 16,000 square feet of floor space. The first Upson Company office was an old shed with no heat and when they first went into the building, which would become the factory, they found two feet of ice on the floor with icicles hanging from the piping. The first office desk was a kitchen table which they covered and put an oil stove under it to keep their feet warm. During the severe winter of 1913-1914 Bessie Bartholomew, working in the office, reports that "the old steam pipes in the office would freeze during the night and we would hug them in the morning to keep warm."
Upson wallboard proved to be a much better and more dependable wallboard than was produced by any other company. It was the first wallboard to be made with four piles, the first to be kiln dried, and the first to be surface sized for easier painting. So the sales of Upson wallboard were great and in March, 1914, the Upson Company moved from the Lowertown site to new facilities on Stevens Street in Lockport. Upson had built a building which actually was three buildings connected to form the letter E. During World War I the company was designated as first and second choice suppliers by the War Department. In fact during the two World Wars Upson supplied more wallboard to the armed forces than any other manufacturer.
By 1921 the Upson Company had become the world's largest wallboard factory under one roof. There were other Upson plants located in New Orleans; El Segundo, Ca; Elkhart, Indiana; and St. Catherines, Ont. However, when the depression began in 1929 following the stock market crash, commerce came to a stand still. Housing sales dropped to practically nothing and the workers were in danger of losing their jobs. About this time jigsaw puzzles had become a great fad. However, the puzzles were expensive because they were cut with a wood backing which was painstakingly and slowly sawed into individual pieces. Upson executives wondered if a steel die could be made to cut an entire puzzle at one time. The Upson Production Department made the first dies and several hundred puzzles were cut.
The first puzzles were pictures pasted on 3/16" Upson panels, packaged in plain orange boxes. They were the same thickness as the wooden puzzles but were flat, easy to handle and did not require the painstaking time to cut out that wooden puzzles did. To get the puzzles on the market W. Harrison Upson talked to S. S. Kresge in Detroit. Kresge was not certain the puzzles would sell but agreed to put them in few of his stores. The puzzles sold for 69 or 79 cents rather than the $3 or $4 for the wooden puzzle and they were an immediate success. The stores sold out of puzzles rapidly and were waiting for more.
So with picture puzzles in demand, in 1932 Upson started the TUCO subsidiary and workers' jobs at Upson were saved. During peak years of 1932-1933 Upson shipped as many as 50,000 puzzles daily. Stores sent their own trucks and in the morning the trucks would be lined up for however many puzzles the company could spare.
In 1971 the Upson Company began a five year modernization of the Stevens Street plant.
Problems arose, however, with delays in equipment delivery and getting the new machinery
installed. Business began to decline, including the TUCO puzzle business. TUCO was sold to
Munro Games and moved to Arcade, New York. Then there was an eight week shutdown in 1977
and a strike in 1978 and the company was losing money. On June 25, 1980 the company filed
for bankruptcy.
In 1984 the Upson Company was sold to Domtar, a Canadian firm headquartered in Montreal. Domtar kept the Upson paper mill on Stevens Street but sold its converting operation to Niagara Fibreboard. In December, 1993 Niagara Fibreboard moved from the Stevens Street plant to the Erie Canal bank in Lowertown (photo below).
In August, 1992 Domtar sold the company to Caraustar Industries of Austell, Georgia. The Upson Company became "Buffalo Paperboard" and the company was moved to Ohio Street. It was still in business in June, 2002, but had only 65 hourly workers and 10 salaried employees. Vice president and general manager Earl Stecker said the hourly work force was down 25% from its peak and the salaried staff had been cut in half.
Mr. Anderson's commentary first appeared in the bulletin of the Niagara County Historical Society.
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A Detailed Report On TUCO Puzzles
As a former resident I also grew up on TUCO puzzles. I still find some original Lockport
and some with the Address of Arcade NY a division of MUNRO Games Buffalo.
This info was passed to me by the Lockport Historians office on TUCO:
TUCO Puzzles Lockport NY 1932-57
THE TUCO WORKSHOPS INC Lockport was a wholly owned subsidiary of UPSON Co.. They continue
today to manufacture a varied array of items. The company credits TUCO as the mainstay of
UPSON production during the depression. The name was derived from the first letter of
(T)he (U)pson (CO). Marketed as "extra thick interlocking pieces" Today there is
some puzzles marked Tuco workshops Arcade NY a division of MUNRO GAMES Buffalo NY. The
older puzzles are considered a highly sought after collators item. The Internet antique
market lists them as " mass produced" value $3.00-15.00.
A book was advertised by Sterling Mason 4838 Ridge Road Spencerport, NY 14559. TUCO
PUZZLES 1932-1957 hard Bound 375 pages 950 replicas of pictures, by box, and by artist
$65.00 plus $9.20 postage and tax.
F.D. Bruning
Geneva, Florida
3-2-00
Comments On Old Upson Company
Enjoyed reading about the Upson company. My career stated in the sign and
display business. We used Upson Board by the truckload. The ideal free form cutting tool
was the "CutAwl" which I believe is still manufactured. We built a lot of
displays for theatres. I still have a newspaper clipping showing a 46' tall cutout picture
of Marilyn Monroe with her dress blowing up. The whole thing was made in sections of Upson
Board, framed with wood, cut to profile, and held together with carriage bolts and wing
nuts.
Bill G. Moore
BillGMoore@aol.com
Greasy Walker and The Upson Company
Readers of "Lockport Boy"
may remember that the great character of Greasy Walker worked at the Upson company and
pretended that he was a big shot right up there with Jim Upson. Greasy also pretended he
was the head of the union and couldn't have been both. My father worked at Upson's as
janitor in the office in the 60's and until he retired, living at the time at 40 S.
Bristol Ave., a short walk from work.
Frank Bredell
11-26-02