Title: Knapp, Stout & Co., Company: Records
Inclusive Dates: 1841-1932

Creator:

• Knapp, Stout & Co., Company (Menomonie, Wis.)

Call Number: Stout Mss B

Quantity: 11.0 c.f. (4 archives boxes and 46 separate volumes)

Repository:

Housed at the University Archives and Area Research Center, Library Learning Center, University of Wisconsin-Stout; owned by the Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

UW-Stout Library Learning Ctr. / Stout Area Research Ctr. (Map)

Abstract:

Records of the Knapp, Stout & Co., Company and its predecessor, Knapp, Stout and Co., including personal diaries and records of its president John H. Knapp and his son, Henry E. Knapp; various balance sheets, cash books, ledgers, and contracts; inventories; records of logging camps and company boats; maps and descriptions of company owned lands; historical sketches of Dunn County, Wisconsin; notes on Mississippi steamboats; and miscellaneous letter books. Also present is J.H. Knapp's private account journal; and a hotel register from the Tainter House in Dunnville indicating guest's name, residence, and destination.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-stou000b

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In 1846 the partners John H. Knapp, Henry L. Stout, William Wilson, and Andrew Tainter founded the Knapp, Stout Company, which then began its long and profitable career in the lumber industry, first in Wisconsin and later expanding to adjoining states. Benefiting by superior leadership and a strategic location in Menomonie, the company withstood the financial crises of the 1870s by plowing its earnings back into large-scale timberland investments, improvements, and enlargements of its physical facilities as well as by integrating and diversifying its operations. In 1878 the company easily made the transition from a partnership organization to a corporation, changing its name to The Knapp-Stout and Co., Company, which title it retained until its dissolution in the early years of the twentieth century.

For further information about the development of this company, see the company history in Box 2 of the collection; and for more information concerning the lumber industry in Wisconsin, see James Willard Hurst's Law and Economic Growth (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1964.)

The records of The Knapp-Stout and Co., Company include correspondence, a letter book, constitutional documents, balance sheets, inventories, diaries, journals, historical material regarding the company and its founders, maps, cash books, ledgers, contracts, and other business and financial papers. The bulk of this material is contained in 90 volumes. The contents list which follows provides detailed information on the collection's contents.

In the correspondence in Box 1 are letters exchanged between Henry E. Knapp and other men involved in the operation of the Company--Thomas B. Wilson, Henry L. Stout, Andrew Tainter, and John H. Douglass. The history of the Company in Box 2 indicates the offices each of these men held.

Letters from William R. Marshall of St. Paul deal with the Knapp family's investments in real estate in the Twin Cities; and letters from Orrin H. Ingram, Eau Claire, and Joseph O. Thorp, Cambridge, Massachusetts, deal with lumbering and investments.

Acquisition Information

Presented by H. E. Knapp, Menomonie, 1926; Jessie Thomas Knapp, 1932-1933; Mrs. Margaret T. Branson, 1937; Hans Haugen, Birchwood, 1959; Rt. Rev. William W. Horstick, Diocese of Eau Claire, Episcopal Church, Eau Claire, 1961, 1963, 1964; Lillian M. Kelley, place and date unknown; Mrs. George W. LaPointe, Menomonie, 1955; and the Dunn County Historical Society, Menomonie, 1971. Source of Volume 73a and 87 unknown; transferred from the Stout Area Research Center, 1978. Volume 88 presented by John Russell, Menomonie, Wisconsin, 1981. Accession Number: M71-226, M78-426, M81-154

Processing Information

Processed by Eleanor Niermann, August 27, 1971 and Karen Baumann, April 20, 1983.

Stout Mss B Box   1	Correspondence, 1841, 1859, 1866, 1870-1932 Note: See also Volume 44 and 45.
	Unbound company documents
Box   2 Folder   1	History
Box   2 Folder   2	Articles of incorporation, consolidation, and dissolution
Box   2 Folder   3	Balance sheets for various company enterprises such as at Menomonie, Rice Lake, St. Louis, Dubuque, and Fort Madison
Box   2 Folder   4	Merchandise and pinery inventories, 1899; logging teams, , 1899; abstract, , 1899; wagon shop and stables, , 1900
Box   2 Folder   5	Camp inventories, 1892, 1896, 1899
Box   2 Folder   6	Company steamboats on the Mississippi and Chippewa Rivers
Box   2 Folder   7	Henry E. Knapp biographical material
Box   2 Folder   8	Chippewa River area historical sketches
Box   3 Volume   1-24	Diaries of John H. Knapp, Fort Madison, Iowa, president of The Knapp-Stout & Co., Company, 1848, 1851, 1855, 1859-1863, 1865-1867, 1869, 1875, 1877-1881 These diaries are available online.
Box   3 Volume   25	Journal of John H. Knapp, 1858-1866
Box   3 Volume   26	Private journal of John H. Knapp, 1865-1875, 1878
Box   4 Volume   27	Account book of John H. Knapp, 1878-1883
Box   4 Volume   28	Diary of a trip to Japan, 1903-1904, H.E. Knapp, president of The Knapp-Stout & Co., Company
Box   4 Volume   29	Record book of H.E. Knapp containing detailed information regarding the Company, its enterprises and the Knapp family
Box   4 Volume   30	List of hotels H.E. Knapp stayed at, with dates of his world travels
Box   4 Volume   31-32	Notes of H.E. Knapp regarding Company boats on the Mississippi and Chippewa Rivers
Box   4 Volume   33-34	Lists of Company logging camps, 1846-1901
Box   4 Volume   35-36	Two maps of company-owned lands in Barron County, with notations showing all Company logging camps Note: Maps published by the Company and prefaced by 12 page introduction describing Company lands.
Volume   37	Lands owned, from whom purchased, prices paid, and taxes paid from 1873 to 1880
Box   4 Volume   38-42	Lands owned by the Company in Barron and Sawyer Counties; also lists of personal property and appropriations, probably of H.E. Knapp, 1883-1892 Note: Prairie Farm lands are noted in Vol. 38. See Volume 84 for Arkansas land records.
Box   4 Volume   43	Washburn Farm and personal accounts of Knapp brothers, 1890-1896
Box   1 Volume   4	Letter book of outgoing correspondence from Fort Madison, Iowa, office, 1857-1860
Box   4 Volume   45	Letter book, 1897-1900, of Elmer J. Newsom, attorney and employee of the Company and its owners and managers of the Memorial Auditorium and Library at Menomonie, Wisconsin
	Cash books, Sequence 1
Volume   46	1853 August 20-1854 August 24
Volume   47	1855 January 1-1856 June 30
Volume   48	1856 July 1-1858 May 31
Volume   49	1857 June 3-December 31
Volume   50	1858 June 1-1859 May 31
Volume   51	1859 June 1-1860 May 31
Volume   52	1860 June 1-1861 May 31
Volume   53	1861 June 1-1862 May 31
Volume   54	1862 June 2-1863 January 3
Volume   55	1863 January 1-December 31
Volume   56	1864 January 1-December 31
Volume   57	1865 January 2-December 31
Volume   58	1866 January 2-September 27
Volume   59	1866 September 28-December 31
Volume   60	1867 January 1-November 13
Volume   61	1868 January 1-December 31
Volume   62	1868 January 1-December 31
	Cash books, Sequence 2
Volume   63	1848 April 23-1849 June 11
Volume   64	1850 January 1-August 19
Volume   65	1851 February 23-July 18
Volume   66	1851 July 19-1852 January 28
Volume   67	1855 January 1-1858 June 1
Volume   68	1858 June 1-1862 December 31
Volume   69	1863 January 1-1866 December 31
	Ledgers
Volume   73a	1850-1852 ("Ledger A., Knapp & Tainter")
Volume   70	1846-1847
Volume   71	1846-1847
Volume   72	1847-1848
Volume   73	1848-1850
Volume   74	1851-1852
Volume   75	1852-1853
Volume   76	1853-1854
Volume   76a	1854-1856
Volume   77	1856-1857
Volume   78	1857-1858
Volume   79	1858-1859
Volume   80	1859-1860
Volume   81	1860-1861
Volume   82	1861-1862
Volume   83	1862
Volume   84	Arkansas lands, 1890-1903 Note: See also Volumes 37-42 for other land records.
Volume   85	Contracts, 1867 November 21-1902 September 14
Volume   86	Receiving, storing, and forwarding, 1861 May 30-1867 August 30
Volume   87	Tainter House register, 1858-1869
Volume   88	Private account book of John H. Knapp, 1854-1863