Excerpt from Family Letter written by Herb Turner September 6, 1971
Grandfather J. B. Turner founded the family business in 1823. He acquired his farm near Lancaster, Ohio in 1864 and opened up a sandstone quarry in 1867. He purchased another farm in Illinois in 1879 and still another in 1883 in the same state. He opened the Alleghany Stony Quarry in 1882 with a crew of twenty-five men.
The Warehouse, which was the forerunner of the present business, was opened as a grain elevator in 1884.
He started the general store in Bremen in 1885. He founded the Pioneer Telephone line in 1893. He started the flour mill in 1893, the Bremen Gas and Oil Company in 1898 and the bank in 1906.
In 1910-1912 Uncle Ed, Uncle Will and Uncle Albert were the millionaires of the town. They possibly, at that time, had in excess of $100,000 each. The buying power today would be more than a million dollars.
