MacNEIL, J. Carlton & C. Richard

MACNEIL, MOORE, ABEL, BELDING, ROMEY, SMITH, MCCOMB

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 11/11/2014 at 01:44:47

The Globe Gazette
Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa
Saturday, August 17, 1940, Page 16

THEY STARTED HERE
No. 22 in a Mason City Series of Success Stories

MacNEILS in Horatio Alger Careers

By Frederic A. Schneller

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
If you were to go into New York and drop into the finest men's store on Fifth avenue to talk shop, sooner or later you would hear the name of MacNeil and Moore of Milwaukee. That's because MacNeil and Moore is generally recognized as a phenomenon in its field and as one of the finest men's stores in the nation.

It was founded nine years ago [August 27, 1931] in the depth of the depression by J. Carlton (Cog) MacNeil, its president, and his partner, D. W. Moore, with $3,200 in capital. Today [1940] the firm grosses in excess of $400,000 a year and employs 40 persons. Association with and a member of the firm is C. Richard MacNeil. Both of the MacNeil boys are former Mason Cityans.

It all began in 1913 when Fred J. MacNeil moved to Mason City from Eldora and opened the MacNeil clothing store. It was in this store that his two young sons, Richard and Carlton, became acquainted with the apparel business. First it was window washing and floor mopping. Later, servicing and selling. But it was the beginning of their business experience.

* * *
Many people remember the corduroy bell bottom trouser with a scarlet pleat and perhaps a bell to tinkle at every step or more. It was young J. Carlton MacNeil with LeRoy (Dink) Abel who started that fad in Mason City in 1922. It might have been a youngster's silly fancy. More likely it was a reflection of an early interest in clothes and a readiness to adopt the decrees' of fashion as they were known then.

Bell bottom trousers have very little to do with this story, except that the era was that of the high school years of Cog and Dick. And they were the years, too, when Mason City knew the boys best . . . the post-war years of the early twenties when the junior college was in its infancy and Lester Belding and Dick Romey were Iowa footbal stars . . . . The post-war deflation was yet to come with its string of Iowa bank failures in 1924. That is the world in which these two boys found themselves after high school.

* * *
Cog went on to matriculate at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor an becam A Sigma Nu. Deick to Kenilworth near Chicago to finish his high schooling and get his diploma . . . the beginning of divergencies that were able to keep the brothers apart until 1933. For the intervening years it is necessary to look upon their careers separately.

After two years at Michigan, Cog decided that he would rather work. With the retailing experience of his father's store and a year with the Hentges Brothers of Mason City behind him, he took a job with Toepfer and Bellack, then one of the foremost clothing houses in Wisconsin. In 1929 he left to manage a store for Pete Burns at Madison, there to meet D. W. Moore who was also associated with the firm. With two years of management experience in the Pete Burns store, MacNeil with Moore [illegible] resources of $3,200 and opened a men's clothing store in Milwaukee.

* * *
That was in 1931. Panic was abouat to seize the country. Bank closing were just ahead. Yet on the second floor of Milwaukee's Iron Block building read a small sign . . . "MacNeil and Moore, business, sports and formal clothes." There were no windows. There were no shelves. There was no fanfair or display . . . just a couple of young men who were going to try and make their living selling clothes to the friends they had made during a four year sojourn in Wisconsin. There was not even a newspaper advertisement to announce their arrival.

The most friendly competitor gave them three months. Through the years the street had seen others just like them and the story was always the same: "It takes a lot of capital and years of experience to operate a men's store successfully."

J. C. MacNeil (Cog) was president, D. W. Moore (Dinty) was secretary and treasurer. The clothes hung on hall trees. The shirts and ties were in chests. And looking at the ensuing years it seems as though a miracle had held the store together. Two persons had to make their living from a store probably smaller than the average living room. But the miracle happened. The store grew and prospered. The December business of its first year was $8,000. By way of contrast $5,000 worth of business was done in a single day last week.

* * *
The younger brother, Richard (Dick), joined the firm in 1933. After leaving high school in Kenilworth, Dick matriculated at the University of Iowa. After a year of college, Hollywood lured him and he went to the west coast to spend seven years in the movies.

Garbo was making her start. Jean Harlow had just been discovered by Howard Hughes. Barbara Stanwyck was seen for the first time. Dick knew them all . . . most of them by the first names. It was the day of teh colliegian series of pictures that featured Sue Carroll. Mack Sennett was making comedies. And the "Torchy" series with Ray Cooke [1931-38] was the scream of every screen. This was Dick's picture . . and he had parts in some 250 others. He was with Howard Hughes in "Hell's Angels," Joan Crawford in "Dancing Daughters," and dozens of others that are now film history. These, of course, were precarious days for Dick. A bit here, a bit there . . . but nothing that could really be called a sembalance of an important dramatic part. In the meantime the growing firm of MacNeil and Moore needed help. So at the inducement of his brother, Cog, Dick joined and became a member of the firm in 1933 . . . and Dick's star began to ascend in the clothing business . . . with Hollywood left behind.

* * *

By 1934 the firm outgrew its second story location and leased quarters in the Pfister hotel building, one of the two largest hotels in Milwaukee. More risk, it seemed to the skeptics, because the quarters acquired had gone begging for a thenant for almost two years. But since that time the store has become a phenomenon in retailing that is known from coast to coast . . and recognized as one of the finest men's clothing stores in the nation.

Depression born, and New Deal nurtured, the store has gone ahead in a way that is decidedly its own. It sells men's suits and topcoats priced from $45 to $150 . . . and is the only store in Wisconsin selling clothing of this price range. It obviously caters largely to business executives of large incomes and those who appreciate and can afford the very finest in apparel.

Its advertising has won one national award and three for the state of Wisconsin including first places for both its newspaper and direct mail advertising. All with its president (Cog MacNeil) only 35 years old, and his brother, Dick, a year younger.

In connection with the men's clothing business, MacNeil and Moore operate a Tweed shop for women, a separate store also located in the Pfister hotel. Here the very finest of imported tweeds and woolens are sold, with much of the merchandise imported from the British Isle.

* * *
In addition to the two Milwaukee stores, the firm also has a Madison store under the management of William H. Purnell.

Cog married Antoinette Smith, daughter of Raymond Smith of Milwaukee, in 1932. They have three children, Sandy, Judith and Douglas. The family spends its summers on a country estate of 42 acres located north of Milwaukee. The property has two private lakes, horses, stables, ponies for the children, and a guest house that accommodates 10. A specially built hatchery keeps the lakes well stocked with bass, trout, pike and perch, and many of Cog's leisure moments are spent fly casting on these waters.

Dick makes his home in Fox Point . . . a suburb located on Lake Michigan just north of Milwaukee. He married Janet McComb of Milwuakee. With his family he vacations in Quibel, Canada, where he has recently built a hunting lodge.

* * *
Both Dick and Cog love sports. They make annual pilgrimages down into Tennessee wehre they hunt ducks. They also trail deer each fall an dwinter in northern Wisconsin or Canada. For exercise they play squash and tennis. Cog belongs to the University club, the Town club and the Gyro club. Dick is a member of the Town club, the Milwaukee Athletic club, and the Fox Point club.

Their father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Fred J. MacNeil, now live at Decorah. Their Milwaukee visits are frequent. But wouldn't anybody's be if they had two such successful sons?

Photographs courtesy of Globe-Gazette

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, May of 2014

Cerro Gordo Biographies maintained by Lynn Diemer-Mathews.
WebBBS 4.33 Genealogy Modification Package by WebJourneymen