Industry in Beloit’s early days had its successes and difficulties. Machines made in pioneer factories in this city as far back as the Civil War and the years soon after it, probably are in service somewhere today.

Fred Messer, who grew up in Beloit, and who was naturally inclined to the machine trade, was prominent in this community’s frontier industrial struggles. His father was an engineer and surveyor. From him he inherited the determination to be a machinist.

He learned his trade in the O.E. Merrill Company. He had ability and ambition and he became superintendent. That company became the Merrill & Houston Iron Works. Manufacture in those days was an order-to-order proposition. A new factory building seemed to forecast financial difficulties and in 1884 reorganization was necessary.

It was then that Fred Messer, together with A.A. Aldrich, N.J. Ross and W.H. Grinnell, laid the foundation for the Beloit Iron Works. He was the organizer and promoter, and his associates named him the first president of the firm. He died five years later.

The principles of a progressive, successful business under his administration had been established. Sixty-five years later the company had ruled for many years as the largest maker of paper-making machinery in the world.

Before his death Fred Messer had served his city as an alderman and he had participated much in its growth and advancement