Backward Glance for Oct. 30
Published 10:49 pm Thursday, October 29, 2026
This week’s Backward Glance begins in 1914 with a jaded writer’s back-handed compliment about how hard local women were working on gaining their right to vote, and then moves to 1952 and the announcement that the new “Swisher” lawnmower company was opening up in Warrensburg.
Source: The Standard-Herald
Date: Friday, Oct. 30, 1914
Title: Doing Hard Work
The women of Warrensburg are doing a vast amount of hard work to secure the adoption of woman suffrage for Missouri and the ratification of the county unit bill passed by the legislature and held up by the referendum. The women are making such a strong campaign for these issues that many have lost sight of the other issues and politics in general are sadly neglected. The people should certainly be posted in regard to these issues and vote intelligently on them in the election. If they do not carry it is simply because the majority of the voters are opposed to the measures.
Source: The Star-Journal
Date: Friday, Oct. 31, 1952
Title: New Lawn Mower Plant To Be In Operation Here Within Month
A new home-owned factory producing self-propelled rotary lawn mowers will soon get in operation in buildings of the old Roseland packing company on East Gay Street.
The Swisher Mower and Machine Company will begin producing “Swish-err” power lawn mowers probably within 30 days, it was revealed Wednesday.
Equipment and material are now being moved into the factory, which will occupy at present a section of the old packing plant and eventually expand to take in the entire layout.
Max Swisher, 22-year-old son of Henry Swisher, is the designer of the machine that the new corporation will be manufacturing here. The youthful mechanic is now serving a two-years hitch in the Army at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., but expects to be discharged in March.
Max worked for a year designing the mower, which he completed three years ago.
During the past two years several hundred of the machines have been produced under the name “Mohawk” on the Swisher farm 3 miles north of Leeton.
The “Swish-err” is a self-propelled, push-type mower with a suction-type rotary blade. A single-centered rear wheel pushes the mower, powered by a 1½-horsepower Clinton engine.
The mower will have national distribution. Dealers have been set up in several states throughout the nation and more dealers will be added before production begins.
The officers of the company are: President, Max Swisher; first vice-president, Guy Booth; second vice-president, Walter Barnes; secretary, Wallace Cooper; and treasurer, Ray Swisher.
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