Crawfordsville Seed Company

Crawfordsville Seed Company, Crawfordsville, Montgomery County, Indiana, organized and opened for business starting 1 July 1914. The company was one of two seed distributors in Crawfordsville. The 1926 Crawfordsville city directory listed the company partners with A[bner] Homer Flanigan as president, Shirl Herr as vice-president, and F. Rider Freeman as secretary and treasurer. The business, located at 300 North Green Street, expanded by 1922 to incorporate the buildings between 300 and 312 North Green Street. Flanigan was active in the company as president from the founding in 1914 until his death in 1942. Freeman was active in the company as secretary and treasurer from its founding in 1914. During the summer of 1917, Freeman studied seed analysis in Washington, D.C. Later, he served as the company´s vice-president and as president from 1944 until 1959. Family members of the three original partners also worked for the seed company. Edwin Flanigan (exact relationship to Homer Flanigan uncertain) acted as secretary and treasurer in 1940 and eventually became the company president by 1962. Remley Herr, Shirl Herr´s son, worked in the company lab during the 1940s, and Richard Freeman was listed as the company´s vice-president in 1962. The Crawfordsville Seed Company was sold to the nationally known Northrup King & Company in 1966.

Shirl Herr, vice-president of the Crawfordsville Seed Company, also contributed much to the community and worked as an inventor. Born in Lapland, Boone County, Indiana, on 21 April 1875, Herr came from Pennsylvania-German stock. After a few terms at Lebanon High School, he educated himself in plant culture science. He moved to Crawfordsville in 1906 and worked as foreman for Crabbs, Reynolds Seed Co. and then as a seed cleaner from his home before joining Flanigan and Freeman to form the Crawfordsville Seed Company. Herr made a significant contribution to the seed industry by inventing devices for cleaning seeds, especially clover seeds. He also received recognition for inventing a magnetic balance for locating underground minerals and metals (He invented the Metal Detector). After many active years in Crawfordsville social organizations, Shirl Herr died of heart disease on 1 October 1936, at the age of 61.

Sources: Crawfordsville City Directory and Montgomery County Gazatteer, 1912. (Anderson, IN: Union Directory Co., 1912), p. 82.
Gronert, Theodore G. "Shirl Herr." Indiana Magazine of History. Vol. 33. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana Historical Society, March 1937), p. 52.
Gronert, Theodore G. Sugar Creek Saga, A History and Development of Montgomery County . . ., (Crawfordsville: Wabash College, 1958), pp. 48, 457.
Leshnick´s Crawfordsville City Directory, 1922. (Peoria, IL: Leshnick´s Directory Co., 1922), p. 89.
Materials in the collection.
Polk´s Crawfordsville City Directories.,(Chicago: R. L. Polk & Co., 1926, 1940,1944, 1959, 1966).
Riggs, Constance Kakavelos. Montgomery County Remebers . . . (Crawfordsville: Montgomery County Historical Society, 1976), pp. 121, 124.

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