Webb C. Ball
Webb C. Ball was born in Knox County, Ohio, and educated in the public schools of the county. His father being a farmer, the boy learned to handle the somewhat crude farm implements of that day, but this machinery did not satisfy his inclinations for mechanics of a higher grade and finer type. His was undoubtedly the natural genius which has given America some of the greatest of the world's experts in the field of mechanical invention.
The result was the Webb C. Ball was soon apprenticed to a watch maker and jeweler for a term of four years. The schedule fixed his wages at $1 a week for the first two years, while during the third and fourth years he was to receive $7 a week. Thus he was put to work in handling the tools and repairing the delicate machinery of watch and clock mechanism. Mr. Ball has been in the jewelry business since May 13, 1869. From 1875 to 1879 he was business manager of the Dueber Watch Case manufacturing Company, whose plant was then located in Cincinnati. This is now a part of the great Dueber-Hampton Watch Company of Canton, Ohio.
On March 19, 1879, Mr. Ball established himself in business at Cleveland. The site of his first shop was Superior Street, corner of Seneca. He was in that location thirty-two years. The Webb C. Ball Company, of which he is president, is now located in the Ball Building on Euclid Avenue. Beginning business in Cleveland with a very limited capital, his shop consisted of two show cases and a work bench on one side of the room. There was a steady increase in the business both in quality and volume. In 1891 a stock company was formed. Prior to that Mr. Ball had been sole owner and manager of the business. The Webb C. Ball company was incorporated under the laws of the State of Ohio with a paid up capital of a $100,000. For several years Mr. Ball was manager and treasurer of the company, after which he became president. During 1894-95-96 he was associated with the Hamilton Watch Company at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as vice president, director and mechanical expert. As a jewelry house the Webb C. Ball Company is one of the largest in the Middle West, but as the home of railroad standard watches it is without doubt the greatest watch business in America.
Mr. Ball has devoted practically his entire life to originating and improving watch mechanism, adapting it to every test and requirement of railroad service. He has improved railroad watch movements and many invented appliances used in their construction. His business is both a wholesale and retail jewelry house, and the fame of the firm is by no means confined to the United States but extends throughout Canada and Mexico.
The occasion which prompted him to the development of that great service which is his chief contribution to American railroad life was a tragedy. On April 19, 1891, there occurred a collision on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad between a government fast mail train and an accommodation train. The engineers and firemen of both engines and nine United States Postal Clerks lost their lives. Investigations and trials followed by the public authorities. In these trails (sic) Mr. Ball was frequently called upon for expert testimony. It was finally proved that the accident was due to defective watches in the hands of the trainmen in charge of the accommodation train. Mr. Ball, as a recognized expert on watch construction, was soon afterward authorized to prepare a plan of inspection and investigate conditions on the Lake Shore lines.
Those who are in any way familiar with the efficient system of watch and clock time regulation now in use on practically all railroads of the country will be interested at the results of Mr. Ball's personal investigations. He discovered that no uniformity existed or was supposed to be essential in trainmen's watches. Watches were of any make which the owner wished to use. The clocks in roundhouses and dispatcher's offices were seldom regulated to any uniform schedule. After this careful study and investigation Mr. Ball evolved a plan of inspection and time comparison for the watches used by railway employees and for the standard clocks as well. This plan provides that watches of standard grades must be carried by men in charge of trains. No discrimination is permitted against any watch factory provided its products meet the requirements. There are now seven leading watch factories whose watches are accepted under the uniform standard inspection rule.
Thus Mr. Ball was responsible for the establishment of the first watch inspection service on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway in 1891, and since then that service has been extended to include the New York Central and all other Vanderbilt lines, the Illinois Central, the Rock Island and Frisco systems, the Union Pacific, Southern Pacific Oregon Short Line, the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis, Missouri, Kansas City and Texas, El Paso and Southwestern, Sun Set Central lines, Western Pacific Railway, Lehigh Valley Railway, Boston and Albany, New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. Fully seventy-five per cent of the railroads throughout the country employ the system of inspection instituted by Mr. Ball. As a result of that system thousand s of lives have been saved, the general efficiency of railroad operation has been promoted, and a vast volume of railroad property has been conserved.
The main office of this extensive inspection service is located at Cleveland and local inspectors are appointed at division points along the various railway lines. To these local inspectors trainmen must report every two weeks for time comparison. They are furnished with a clearance card certificate which must record any variation in their watches, the limit being thirty seconds per week. If anything is found amiss the trainman must secure a standard loaner watch and leave his own for adjustment. These loaned watches are furnished without expense to the trainmen. By this card system a perfect record is kept and the trainmen cheerfully comply, as it safeguards the service and themselves as well. The Ball inspection service requires a large office force in Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco and Winnipeg, with a number of traveling assistants. The railroad lines in eastern and central districts are administered from the Cleveland offices while the railroads in the Chicago, middle western and southern districts are administered from the Chicago office, the Pacific lines from the San Francisco office, and from the Winnipeg office the Canadian Railroad lines are handled. Correct records of all the watches carried by the employees of the different railroads are on file in one or other of these offices.
Today the name "Ball" is a synonym for accuracy in construction of railroad watches throughout the entire country. In this field Mr. Ball's ingenuity and mechanical skill have a free play. He made a special study of the requirement of railroad men in the matter of timepieces and has been able to keep abreast of the marvelous strides of recent years in railroad speed and equipment. His genius as an inventor has produced several distinct watch movements, covered by his own patents and trade marks, and each adapted to fulfill the requirements of their users. Many times Mr. Ball has been referred to in recent years as "the man who holds a watch on one hundred seventy-five thousand miles of railroad" and also as "the time and watch expert." Besides his noteworthy place among Cleveland citizens as a business man Mr. Ball is a charter member of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Union Club and Advertising Club, a director of the Cleveland Convention Board five years and its president in 1902. In politics he is a republican. Mr. Ball was married in 1879 to Miss Florence I. Young, of Kenton, Ohio. They have one son and three daughters.
In August, 1913 Mr. Ball established a wholesale watch and jewelry business in Chicago, known as the Norris-Alister-Ball Company, with his son Sidney Y. Ball as president. Branches have since been opened in San Francisco, California; Portland, Oregon; Winnipeg, Manitoba; Birmingham, Alabama; Cleveland, Ohio; and Syracuse, New York.
From Cleveland - Special Limited Edition, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago & New York, 1918 v.1