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Reeman
by Terry E. Wantz |
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After the railroad came through in 1872. John Brinkman along with Frank Reed
and others, work to get a railroad station located here. The farmers built the station and
the railroad furnished an operator.
Joseph Baillargeon built a steam hoop mill for making a coil hoop on which he
had a patent on section 5, Sheridan. In 1883 he moved it to section 8, where Reeman now
stands. His mill employed 9 men and turned out from 7,000 to10,000 hoops a day. Later
he added a saw mill and feed mill. William A Boyd built a steam saw mill at what
became Reeman. It had a capacity of 12,000 feet a day. In 1883 the firm became Boyd &
McQueen, In 1884 McQueen sold his interest to Frank Reed and the firm became Boyd
& Reed. Boyd also sold his interest to Reed. The mill burned in 1898. John Boyd, finally
went into business for himself. At one time he had 1,000,000 feet of logs in at Reed's
Mill.
In 1894, Frank Reed built a large flour mill on Sec. 8, Sheridan Township, near
the railroad tracks. The mill had a custom trade for miles around. The settlement sprang
up around the mill, and was called Reed's Mill. The same year that Reed built the flour
mill, John Brinkman built the first store there. Before the depot was completed,
Brinkman had a ticket office and express office in his store. With the building of the
depot, Reeman soon became an important shipping point for the farmers of the area.
Brinkman was finally successful, on April 9, 1897, in getting a post office established
there under the name of Reeman. The name originated from a composite of the two
names, Reed and Brinkman. John Brinkman was the first Postmaster, and John Geerling
was the last postmaster when the office closed on June 30, 1959. the mail then went to
Fremont.
Reed, had a Elevator here at his mill and Brinkman also had shingle mill there. In
1872, the Boyd brothers, Charles and Samuel had a warehouse there, where they sold
general produce and potatoes by the car lots. Later Joe Meyers had a Hardware Store and
Jake Reimink had a General Merchandise Store and a Mill here. The telephone number
at the hardware store was 358-3S-1L (the line number was 358 and three short rings and
one long ring was for Hardware.) Reimink number was 242-1S-2L or one short ring and
two long rings. The other telephone lines numbers for Reeman were 369 and 249. Most
of these farm line would have from 10 to 20 customers and some time even more, per
line. These farm phone lines were owned and maintained by the farmers on the line
themselves.
