Why of course not. The Clore Plow & Pipe Company was, until the sinking of the steamer STATE OF MISSOURI, the town's answer to an economic revival following the local “Panic of '94”. A bond issue was floated by the city leaders, and even little kids were contributing their pennies toward the project so that their fathers would, again, have employment in the town that the railroad passed by.
With great fanfare, the first consignment of two-hundred hand-forged steel plow (said to be better than even McCormick) was carefully loaded onto the steamboat, and tears of joy were seen in the eyes of the gristled smithies who, themselves, hammered the rough steel bars into the redeeming consignment that were surely destined to save the community from further economic privation. Remnant bandsmen of the 18th Indiana Regiment were there on the riverbank, and the old veterans played until the STATE OF MISSOURI rounded North landing and the economic future of the town steamed out of sight.
After the steamboat sunk, the 200 hand-forged plows were never recovered. The Clore boys soon left town, too, and abandoned their old mother who lived out her few remaining years in the county home for indigent women. Only recently has the anniversary of that fateful event been mentioned in the local press, and what you read is what was written.
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