Old Greenville - Hiram N. Hollady's Company Town

Old Greenville - Hiram N. Hollady's Company Town. . , Hiram N. Holladay was the driving force behind the growth and prosperity of Old Greenville during the late 19th Century. Holladay began his working life as a teamster. In 1869, he helped to build the Belmont Branch of the St. Louis Iron Mountain and Southern Railway. Holladay then moved to Wayne County and began hauling logs to sawmills in Piedmont and Williamsville. In 1878, he bought a small sawmill and then part interest in a store near Williamsville. Over the next 12 years, Holladay shrewdly built a vertically integrated business empire centered at Old Greenville, that grew to include three stores, a huge lumber mill, a railroad, vast holdings of timber land, lumber camps, farms, iron mines and over 100 rental houses, His Holladay-Klotz Land and Lumber Company store was the largest building in Old Greenville and his ornate Victorian home "Pine Place" was the town finest. Companies owned or controlled by Holladay employed over 700 people and Old Greenville was effectively his company town., Hiram Holladay's life ended violently after midnight on may 13, 1899. He was caught in an affair with his wife's sister and was shot to death in her bedroom by her angry husband, Monroe Johnson. Johnson was clearly guilty, but jurors in the Holladay murder trail felt he had been justifiably provoked in shooting Hiram Holladay. The jurors ultimately convicted Johnson of 4th degree manslaughter, but limited his sentence to a fine of $500. In 1905, the railroad , sawmill and other businesses built by Hiram Holladay were sold by his widow to a group of outside investors for a reported one million dollars, but the local economy never fully recovered., "...... I Owe My Soul to the Company Store" , The lyrics from a 1946 Merle Travis song describe one of the harsh economic realities faced by many unskilled labors in rural mining and timber industries during the late 19th and early 20th century, including workers in Holladay 's logging camps and lumber mill. Holladay deferred his workers wages for 60 days and when "payday" arrived they were paid in store coupons rather than cash. Between paydays, families subsisted by drawing a portion of the worker's earnings in company script, coupons good only for food and merchandise at the company store, By limiting access to cash, some mine and mill owners used the coupon pay system to curb drinking and other dangerous or socially disruptive behavior. Whatever their motivation, paying with coupons also provide the owners with distinct economic advantages. By setting Wages ($1 per 11-hour day) as well as prices for housing and merchandise in the company stores, workers were kept closely tethered to their employer's company. Labors who didn't outspend their earnings had difficulty acquiring cash and therefore could not easily leave a job in search of other opportunities. In 1889 and again in 1895, Holladay's pay practices were investigated by Missouri Labor Commissioner Lee Meriwether, but to no avail. Holladay avoided prosecution and continued to pay his unskilled workers with store coupons rather than cash.