This geocache is part of the West Bend GeoTour:
Twenty geocaches have been hidden throughout our historic city that highlight the best of West Bend in any season!
To earn a geocoin, teams must pick up a West Bend GeoTour Passport from the Chamber of Commerce (preferred method) or download a passport. Collect 25 points as detailed in the passport. Link to Updated Passport: West Bend GeoTour Passport.
Remember to record the password from this cache in your GeoTour Passport!
GeoTour Stop #20: Historic Amity Leather Factory
This building with its recognizable tower once housed the Amity Leather Products Company which grew to be the world's largest manufacturer of leather billfolds. Amity Leather was founded by Robert H. Rolfs in 1915. Convinced that he could improve upon the personal leather goods that were being sold at the time, Rolfs rented a room above Peters' Store on Main Street, and using his entire life savings of a few dollars, he began designing, manufacturing, marketing, and selling his line of leather accessories. With the idea that fine leather goods made excellent gifts, he wanted to give his company a name that reflected the friendliness of gift giving: Amity.
Within a year, the company had outgrown the single room operation, and they moved and added more employees. During World War I, Amity shifted its operations to wartime production. Under government contract, the company began making leather jackets for military use. After the war, billfold demand was booming and they sold wallets across the entire United States.
In 1924 Amity built the factory you see at this site, outfitted with state-of-the-art leather goods manufacturing equipment. The new plant was staffed by 165 production workers, plus another 13 employees to handle clerical duties.
While the Depression emptied out a lot of wallets, it had no apparent effect on the demand for the wallets themselves. Amity continued to grow steadily during the 1930s, emerging during that decade as the largest personal leather goods manufacturer in the country. In fact, the strong economy in West Bend in the 1930s (with other leaders such as the West Bend Mutual Insurance Company, West Bend Savings Bank, and West Bend Aluminum Company) led Ripley's Believe it or Not to claim that "West Bend was the only city in the United States that did not enter the Great Depression."
In 1932, the company introduced a new line of high quality billfolds named for its founder: the very popular Rolfs line. In 1937, Amity introduced the revolutionary wallet called the "Director," the first billfold to include a number of features that have since become standard, such as a secret pocket, spare key pockets, and the "Findex" for cards and photos. It was the first billfold designed to hold anything other than cash and became the best-selling billfold the world had ever seen.
During World War II, Amity manufactured leather handbags for and Army Nurses as well as other items. Meanwhile, company founder Rolfs turned his attention to hawking War Bonds for the U.S. Treasury Department, a task for which he was officially thanked by the president.
The company continued to expand and produce new products. Robert Rolfs died in 1965, but the company continued operating under the Rolfs family until the 1990s. To amp up marketing, Tom Rolfs pioneered the vertical billfold stand that is now the standard way to display a billfold in a department store.
In 1996, the company adopted a new corporate name, AR Accessories Group, Inc. The company sold its West Bend building to the West Bend School District and moved its corporate headquarters into a facility in Brown Deer, Wisconsin. The historic building is now Apartments.
The Geocache: You are looking for a camo'd pill bottle. Extra stealth will be needed here. This cache is available any season. Permission was granted to hide this cache by apartment property manager Alyssa.