Albion Interactive History / People

Carl Ludwig Schumacher
 
    Died 1901

Builder +
St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, 1888
Gale Manufacturing (new factory on Albion St), 1888

Description
Albion had a building boom in 1888. St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, South Superior Street, the oldFirst Methodist Church on Erie Street, and the first units of the new Gale Manufacturing Company, plus about 100 houses were started or completed. Carl L. and son built the Lutheran Church and the Gale works, and did work on many other of these buildings.

The Carl Ludwig Schumacher family, about 1887.

Carl L. had the contract for building the Superior Street bridge in the business section of downtown. Quoting his son Fred W., “Building that bridge was the center of controversy with a thunderous aftermath. No piling was called for in the contract; but an investigation of the river had convinced FatherSchumacher that piling would be needed to properly support the structure. But MayorC.W. Dalrymple objected to any additional expenditure. Mr. Schumacher sank $200 worth of piles anyway. In the flood of March 1908, part of the bridge collapsed where there had been no piling, with disastrous results.”

Fred W. Schumacher superintended the building of the North Superior Street bridge for the Albion Lumber Company. This was to replace the one lost in the flood of 1908, and is in current use.

The Schumacher’s were in Zanesville, Ohio, from November 7, 1900 until December 1, 1901, building the “Y” bridge there. Carl A. had the contract from the American Bridge Company, and Fred and Carl L. went down to help. It spanned the Muskingum and Liking rivers and has been described in publications about famous bridges as the only “three-ended bridge in existence.” One could cross this bridge and still be on the same side of the river!

While the family was in Zanesville, the elder Schumacher contracted pneumonia and died, ending a long career, and a legacy of many buildings and bridges. (Patricia Geyer. The Building Story. Unpublished Manuscript.)

Source: Frank Passic. Homestead Savings and Loan and the Builders of Albion: One Hundred Years of Service, 1889-1989. Albion, MI: Homestead Savings and Loan Association. 1988.