D. M. Sechler Carriage Co.
3rd Avenue and 6th Street

A Pennsylvanian by birth, Daniel Sechler first entered an apprenticeship with a Maryland carriage-maker at the age of 17. After three more years in the business after his apprenticeship ended, Sechler managed a number of still mills in Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee before returning to carriage making in 1877. Eleven years later (at the age of 70) he sold his Cincinnati-based company and moved to Moline, establishing the D.M. Sechler Carriage Co. in a rented building on 3rd Avenue and 7th Street. In 1890 he moved into his own facility on 3rd Avenue and 6th Street.

Besides carriages, Sechler also built buggies, surreys, wagons, hearses and, beginning in 1894, bicycles. Popular names included the Eclipse, Road King, Falcon and Templar. By 1900 the company had more than 200 employees and was making more than 6,000 vehicles a year. In 1903 the company began manufacturing corn planters (the Black Hawk line), and later manure spreaders. To better represent its product lines, the company changed its name in November 1910 to the D.M. Sechler Implement & Carriage Co., but depressed markets after World War I forced the sale of the business.

-Lawrence Cornelius, “D.M. Sechler Implement & Carriage Co.”, June 1996

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