Who's Who of Crow Creek Valley

Byron Gager

Born: Sept. 27, 1845, Ohio
Died: Sept. 25, 1926
Burial:
Last place of residence: Chattanooga
Mother: Lucretia Ripley Gager
Father: Marvin Gager
Spouse: Berthat Adler
Children: James M. Gager
19 MAR 1880 Sandusky, Erie, Ohio

Laura Gager
09 JUL 1885 Sandusky, Erie, Ohio

Other information:
Story from the Sherwood Star #3
Byron Gager
Sept. 27, 1845 – Sept. 25, 1926

It was already dark the evening in late September 1893, when he stepped off the train in Sherwood. Byron Gager had been prospecting near Belvidere and Maxwell. He didn’t find what he was looking for in that area, and an old man in Winchester suggested that he might want to visit the small town in Crow Creek Valley. Gager wasn’t looking for gold, but something infinitely more useful, a high grade of stone called Oolitic limestone.

Gager was born Sept. 27, 1845 at Woodstock, Ohio. The son of Marvin and Lucretia Ripley Gager, he briefly attended Ohio Wesleyan University before leaving home at age 20 to clerk for the railroad office in Columbus. In 1874 he began working for a lime manufacturing plant in Sandusky.

Perhaps Gager heard his personal clock ticking and felt that it was time to make his move. He had just turned 48 when he stepped off the train in Sherwood. By December 1893 he had constructed two kilns and was manufacturing lime. He wasn’t the first to burn lime in Sherwood, but he was the first to quarry limestone. A man known only as Mr. Webster had established a lime kiln somewhere near the present post office, but the small time operation used only the limestone boulders lying about on the ground.

The success of his operation was by no means certain. The town of Sherwood was only 18 years old at the time, having been founded by C. D. Sherwood in 1875. Sherwood was to have been a sort of resort area, a place on the rail line where weary city dwellers could come and enjoy the scenery and mineral springs. However, natural beauty and mineral water were not enough to drive the engine of prosperity. The survival of the small community itself was questionable at the time.

The prospector from Ohio did strike it rich in his own way and established a company that would prosper for nearly half a century. Gager himself told the story to a reporter for the N.C. & St. L. Railway News Item. In an article titled “The Way of Lime,” it was reported that an N.C. & St. L. employee named Tim Mahoney had been instructed to build a sidetrack beside the Gager operation. Known for his caustic remarks, Mahoney finished the sidetrack, came to Gager’s office door and said in a broad Irish accent, “Now, sir! There’s your sidetrack. See to it you keep the rust off the rails!”

“It used to give me a great deal of satisfaction,” said Gager. “When I meeting Tim Mahoney years later, to ask him if he had found any rust on the rails.”

By the end of World War I, Gager had developed his company from two small hand fed kilns into what was called the “largest and most complete lime plant in the South.”
It was about this time that Gager turned over the operation of his company to W. R. Hoback. And sometime in this period, the company architecture also saw a great transformation from the utilitarian buildings of its early days to the imaginative structures conceived by plant engineer George Kinney.

The fanciful buildings which stand today were certainly approved by Gager himself, and are a monument to his energy and vision. In 2002, the Tennessee Preservation Trust noted that the buildings are:
…significant among industrial complexes for their highly styled architectural elements. Unlike most late nineteenth century industrial sites, which typically exhibit little or no reference to contemporary architectural styles, the Gager Lime Manufacturing Company is unique--displaying elements of the Egyptian Revival and Gothic Revival styles. Crenellated parapet walls ornament several storage silos, making the complex appear castle-like. Other buildings feature stylized "papyriform" pilasters surrounding the window bays-another nod to ancient Egypt.”
The unique architecture is a reflection of the early success of the company. Byron Gager’s leadership combined with some imaginative engineering made the company an efficient and successful mining operation for several decades. The high quality oolitic limestone found its way into a number of products including wall finishing, whitewash, agricultural lime and household lime. Many cities including Miami Florida used Gager lime in their water purification plants.
Gager enjoyed vacationing in Miami and in September of that year a storm struck the city causing more death and destruction than any hurricane to that date. Touched by the devastation, he sent a letter to the city enclosing a $300 donation for victim relief. He also generously offered that, “If the city will want any lime for disinfectant, as most cities do after going through such calamities, we stand ready to contribute a carload of lime for that purpose.”
His letter was postmarked Sept. 23, 1926. Gager died the following morning just three days short of his birthday. The company continued for more than two decades, but deprived of the old prospector’s vision and leadership, it fell on hard times. Many people say the handwriting was on the wall by the time World War II ended. In September 1949 the company closed its doors for good.
Sources
Franklin County Historical Review, 1988, XIX, no. 2, pp. 105 – 109
N.C & St. L. Ry. News, July 1924
Miami Builders Exchange Magazine, January 1927
The Mountaineer, June 17, 1976

Links to other websites or genealogy databases: