Nils Olas Nelson (September 11, 1844 – October 5, 1922) was an American industrialist and businessman who was the founder of the N. O. Nelson Manufacturing Company.

Background

Nelson was born the son of Anders Nelson at

Lillesand Lillesand () is municipality in Agder county, Norway. It is part of the traditional district of Sørlandet. The administrative center of the municipality is the town of Lillesand. Some of the larger villages in Lillesand municipality include ...

Aust-Agder Aust-Agder (, en, "East Agder") was a county (''fylke'') in Norway until 1 January 2020, when it was merged with Vest-Agder to form Agder county. In 2002, there were 102,945 inhabitants, which was 2.2% of Norway's population. Its area was . The ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. His family immigrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in 1847. He grew up on his parents' farm near

St. Joseph, Missouri St. Joseph is a city in and the county seat of Buchanan County, Missouri. Small parts of St. Joseph extend into Andrew County. Located on the Missouri River, it is the principal city of the St. Joseph Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includ ...

. After serving in the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

, he was introduced into a career in accounting. He became a bookkeeper for a plumbing fixtures firm in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

N. O. Nelson Manufacturing Co.

In 1877, he started the N. O. Nelson Manufacturing Company in St. Louis, Missouri. Once he had established his business, he moved from simply wholesaling items to manufacturing items dealing with the area of plumbing. The company manufactured and distributed plumbing supplies of all kinds, including faucets, water closets, water heaters, valves, and fire hydrants. In 1888, Nelson decided to relocate the manufacturing facility from St. Louis to a rural area. In 1890 a suitable location was found across the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

Madison County, Illinois Madison County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is a part of the Metro East in southern Illinois. According to the 2020 census, it had a population of 264,776, making it the eighth-most populous county in Illinois and the most popu ...

. The complex was designed by St. Louis architect Edward A. Cameron (1861-1899) specifically for the Nelson Manufacturing Company.

Leclaire, Illinois

In 1890, N. O. Nelson founded the village of Leclaire as a model

company town A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and re ...

. The development of Leclaire started with the original plat design by engineer, surveyor and city planner

Julius Pitzman Julius Pitzman (1837–1923) was a Prussian-born American surveyor and city planner best known for his development of the private, gated neighborhoods in St. Louis, MissouriPorter, E. F. "Historic: Preservationists Move Toward Quiet Victory", ''St ...

(1837–1923). Nelson named the community after French economist and businessman

Edme-Jean Leclaire Edme-Jean Leclaire (14 May 1801 – 13 July 1872) was a French economist and businessman. He developed an early system of employee profit-sharing. Leclaire was born the son of a poor village shoemaker, in Aisy-sur-Armançon, a small village in ...

, who had inaugurated employee

profit sharing Profit sharing is various incentive plans introduced by businesses that provide direct or indirect payments to employees that depend on company's profitability in addition to employees' regular salary and bonuses. In publicly traded companies thes ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. Leclaire was a model

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...

offering affordable homes, free education, opportunities for recreation, and employment at the N. O. Nelson Manufacturing Company. Nelson implemented profit sharing and

employee benefits Employee benefits and (especially in British English) benefits in kind (also called fringe benefits, perquisites, or perks) include various types of non-wage compensation provided to employees in addition to their normal wages or salaries. Inst ...

. In 1902, he founded a

store in Leclaire. Nelson's vision was influenced by the progressive theory of his era, including that of

Sedley Taylor Sedley Taylor (29 November 1834 – 14 March 1920) was a British academic, librarian and one of the Professors at the Trinity College in Cambridge, England. He is known for his works on the science of music and on profit-sharing in industry. B ...

, professor at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...

and his 1885 essays ''On Profit Sharing Between Capital and Labor''. In 1895, Nelson had been a delegate to the meeting in

London, England London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major s ...

of the Co-operation and Profit Sharing Associations of the World. Nelson was also responsible for the organization within the

Greater St. Louis Greater St. Louis is a bi-state metropolitan area that completely surrounds and includes the independent city of St. Louis, the principal city. It includes parts of both Missouri and Illinois. The city core is on the Mississippi Riverfront on t ...

area of many recreational and cultural activities for the underprivileged. In 1934, the city of

Edwardsville, Illinois Edwardsville is a city in and the county seat of Madison County, Illinois, and is a suburb of St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri ...

annexed the village. Today the

LeClaire Historic District LeClaire Historic District is a historic district located in Edwardsville, Illinois. The community was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 8, 1979. N. O. Nelson, the owner of the Nelson Manufacturing Company, establishe ...

has most of the original structures and has been placed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

since 1979. The renovated N. O. Nelson factory buildings are now the historic N. O. Nelson Campus of

Lewis and Clark Community College Lewis and Clark Community College is a public community college in Godfrey, Illinois. It serves approximately 15,000 credit and non-credit students annually. The college has nine locations throughout the St. Louis Metro East, including a campu ...

. The complex is host to college classes, the Confluence

Fab lab A fab lab (''fabrication laboratory'') is a small-scale workshop offering (personal) digital fabrication. A fab lab is typically equipped with an array of flexible computer-controlled tools that cover several different length scales and vari ...

, and the Leclaire Room reception venue.

Personal life

He was married in 1868 to Almeria Posegate (1844–1918). They were the parents of five children, only two of whom survived to adulthood: Julia (1869–1960) and Charlotte (1878–1963). N. O. Nelson died in Los Angeles, California at the age of 78. Both N. O. and Almeria Nelson were buried in the

Bellefontaine Cemetery Bellefontaine Cemetery is a nonprofit, non-denominational cemetery and arboretum in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1849 as a rural cemetery, Bellefontaine is home to a number of architecturally significant monuments and mausoleums such as the ...

References

Other sources

* Rygg, Andreas Nilsen (1943
''A Norwegian Settlement in Missouri''
(Norwegian-American Historical Association. Volume XIII: Page 108) *Stephens, G. W. (1934)

(Dictionary of American Biography, 13:419-420)

External links

N.O. Nelson ElementaryN.O. Nelson Campus of LCCC in Edwardsville

Historic LeclaireLeClaire Illiniois Historical Marker
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nelson, N. O. 1844 births 1922 deaths People from Lillesand Norwegian emigrants to the United States People from Buchanan County, Missouri Businesspeople from St. Louis American industrialists