Frederick William Matthiessen
Zinc magnate, mayor, philanthropist
German immigrant. Hegeler's business partner from the Freiberg School of Mines. Five-term mayor of LaSalle (1886-1897, with one gap). Personally paid for the city's waterworks, electric station, library, and high school. Reorganized the bankrupt United Clock Company in 1888 as Western Clock Manufacturing — what would become Westclox. Donated his Deer Park estate for public use during his lifetime, charging a nominal entrance fee for charity; it was renamed Matthiessen State Park in 1943. The morning of his February 1918 funeral, the entire community of LaSalle suspended business from eleven a.m. to noon.
Matthiessen & Hegeler Zinc Works. Two twenty-one-year-old German immigrants — Frederick Matthiessen and Edward Hegeler — opened a zinc smelter on a hundred-and-sixty acres north of the Little Vermilion River in 1858.
Industry · LaSalle · 1850–1900
Matthiessen & Hegeler Zinc Works
America's largest zinc producer — and the eight-hour workday, in 1885
Sections 10–15, T33N R1E, north of the Little Vermilion River, LaSalle, IL