William G. Leininger Knitting Mills - Lyons Mill Employed 130

At it's peak, The Lyons Knitting Mill employed the greatest number of workers of all the Leininger branch plants.

Located at the western end of Mill Street, Lyon Station, it afforded employment for 130 people and it had been operating on two eight-hour shifts. The main mill at Mohnton, Pennsylvania only exceeded its number of employees. The work hours were from 6 to 5:15 with a 45 minute lunch break, It was quite common to see many young girls walking down the hill, from Dryville, to work in the mill.

This mill was established in 1915 and was in direct charge of Mr. Irwin Mosser as superintendent, since January 1918. It was a two-story building with approximately 10,000 square feet of floor space. Prior to this the mill was located in the house next to the old church on South Kemp Street.

Harvey Arndt, a life long resident of Lyons, started working at the mill when he was 14. He worked at the mill before and after school. Harvey's first job at the mill was winding yarn on spools at 4 cents per spool. He worked himself through the ranks to become foreman of the plant before retiring in 1972. Later the mill installed automated machines and the work force was cut down to 30 employees. As you can see, downsizing companies is not confined to the 21st century.

The production of this mill was 800 dozen pairs of men's hosiery per day. The equipment to produce these goods consisted of 115 Banner-knitting machines, 176 needle, 40 Wildman rib machines and 17 Steady Dial looping machines.

It was estimated, conservatively, that the company in its years of business and produced 125,000 miles of hosiery, which if laid end to end would reach around the world five times.

In the years of operation since William G. Leininger started in business this company had produced and sold over 204,000,000 pairs of all types of hosiery... practically one pair for every person on the North American continent. Approximately one million dozen pairs of Leininger hosiery had been produced under United States Government contracts for the Soldiers, Sailors and Marines of Uncle Sam.

An estimated total of more than $10,000,000 has been paid in wages to the employees. At it's peak the Leininger corporation had 685 employees on its payroll.

(This information was obtained from the historic research of the late Lyons resident, Robert Hassler.)