Source: North Manchester Journal, January 14, 1897

North Manchester Lumber Co.

It was a fortunate day for North Manchester when Peter Kuntz, the "lumber yard king" decided to locate a lumber yard here. This important acquisition to the town's commercial interests is known as the North Manchester Lumber Co., and is backed by the necessary capital and experience to insure its success and confer great benefits upon all the country tributary to North Manchester. The yards of this company front on Washington street and the buildings alone afford 30,000 feet of floor space for the storing of blinds, sash, doors, and all the finer grades of finished lumber. One must see this immense industry and familiarize himself with the modern appliances for conducting a modern lumber yard before he can appreciate its magnitude. To the writer's eye it was a new revelation, as he was not expecting to see so vast an industry located in a town no larger than North Manchester. Its proportions are truly colossal and harmonize with metropolitan ideas.

The stock of lumber, sash, doors, blinds and builders' hardware is very large and of the best quality. An important feature of this mammoth institution is the low prices at which the North Manchester Lumber Co. is offering its stock, and the large business the company has already build up shows pretty conclusively that it has struck a popular chord.

The railroad facilities enjoyed by this company could not be better as the Wabash and Big Four have each supplied it with trackage which enables it to unload direct from the cars into its yards, or vice versa.

The local manager, Mr. W.R. Oyler, is a courteous gentleman with whom the public likes to deal, and under his capable and popular management the affairs of the North Manchester Lumber Co. are certain to prosper.

Advertising (lower left) circa 1910 on Old Opera Curtain (After Restoration):