Tour of the Spalding Company’s Bat Factory in the 1920s

[Jobu]

Here is a series of 7 photos that shows the workings of the Spalding bat factory. I have posted one photo in each of the following posts, along with some zoomed in crops of each photo for stuff where I thought people would like a better look. These photos appear to be double weight and are linen mounted – all by the same Chicago photographer. The back of one of the photos is in the first post.

Spalding was located in Chicago, something confirmed in one of the photos as the pennants on the wall in the background are Big 10 schools and one for Hyde Park, a Chicago neighborhood. The 1914 Chicago phonebook gives two addresses for Spalding, 28 S. Wabash and 140 W. 54th St. Wabash is still standing, but the windows don’t match the photos, so these photos were likely taken at the other location, which was torn down and is now a strip mall with a Family Dollar.

One of the photos has a Spalding Autograph model for Ross Youngs, who played from 1917-1926, passing away at the age of 30 in early 1927. So that gives us a pretty good 10-year window for these pictures. There are also Reach George Sisler bats in one photo, but he played from 1915-1930, so that doesn’t narrow things down any further.

It is also interesting to see that there are three brands of bats in these photos, being made side by side: Spalding, AJ Reach, and Wright & Ditson. Spalding bought the other two companies around 1892.