J. M. Trout, Fire Sand Quarries, Landisville, Pennsylvania, ca. 1890s

J. M. Trout

Owner and operator of fire sand quarries. Also loam beds. Landisville, Penna.

G. H. Thomas, western sales agt., Latrobe, Penna.

Pluck Print.

David Bachman Landis, who designed and printed this business card, wrote about J. M. (Jacob M.) Trout (1858-1935) and his father, Jacob S. Trout, in "Mineral Deposits and Works of the Hempfields," an artilce that appeared in the Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society, v. 8, no. 8 (June 3, 1904), p. 247:

" . . . Jacob S. Trout discovered a valuable bed of silica or 'fire' sand, in 1870. Experiments with this sand demonstrated its superior value in the construction of furnaces and the manufacture of steel and iron. Mr. Trout shortly after opened a large trade for his sand, and regularly shipped from Landisville station many carloads of it to the great works of the Pennsylvania Steel Company, at Steelton, and other steel and iron works in Central Pennsylvania. . . . Since the death of Jacob S. Trout, in the year 1893, his son, J. M. Trout (who resides in the village of Landisville at the present time) has taken up the silica sand business and has been shipping thousands of tons to different iron workers, as far West as Chicago, Ill., and East to Massachusetts."

Compare the wiry borders in the design of this card with those used in the return address on an envelope for Charles S. Frantz, Graduate Ophthalmic Optician, Watchmaker, and Jeweler, Lancaster, Pa.