QUILT HISTORY STORIES
ELGIN, ILLINOIS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
LeeWard Mills and Lee Wards Story
Book 7
Susan Wildemuth, Atkinson, IL
History of LeeWard Mills and LeeWards
Pre--LeeWards (1943-1948)
A few years before there was a Fink and Fried company, Rudolph Petzelt of Chicago, Illinois owned a company called Mid-City Engineering Company, which would merge with Collingbourne Mills, Inc. of Elgin, Illinois in January 1943.(16) This merger took place after Albert Collingbourne had stepped away from Collingbourne Mills, Inc. and attorney Parker F. McMahon had stepped in to deal with the company, inventory, and machinery left from the Collingbourne Mills, Inc. days.(17) On April 8, 1943, under Rudolph Petzelt’s management, the name Collingbourne Mills, Inc. ceased to exist in Elgin, Illinois. After the merger, Petzelt’s company, located at 4310 North Kedzie Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, became known as Dexter Thread, Inc. and operated as such well into the 1950s.(18)
In 1948 Fink and Fried changed their Chicago based company name from Leeward Products, Ltd to Dexter Thread Mills, Inc. which was initially located at 189 West Madison Street, Chicago, Illinois. The Petzelt company name and the Fink and Fried company name did not cause any problems for these gentlemen at the time they were chosen, but it would create some confusion when textile historians tried to piece together the relationship between Collingbourne Mills Inc., Petzelt’s company (Dexter Thread, Inc.), and LeeWards (Dexter Thread Mills, Inc.) and why there were two unrelated companies in Chicago named Dexter with the words Thread and Inc. in them.
Adding a bit more confusion to the “relationship” mix was the fact that Sidney Fink and Ralph Fried hired Asa App of Elgin, Illinois who had worked in various upper level positions at Collingbourne Mills, Inc.. With Asa App in their employ, a dwindling supply of surplus Army thread, and a market craving thread, the oral history is that Fink and Fried approached Rudolph Petzelt. As a tool and die man, Rudy was more interested in the machinery from the previous incarnation of Collingbourne Mills, Inc. than the thread and textile merchandise. So the brothers-in-law purchased the leftover Collingbourne inventory and a ready-made mail order list of names came with surplus items.
Research revealed outside of the use of some initial surplus inventory, short-time use of the Grandma Dexter rocking chair logo in the early catalogs, and the continuation of the prestigious Dexter name associated with Fink and Fried’s company, the author could find no “legal” connection between Collingbourne Mills, Inc. and LeeWards at the time this history was written.
