Editing Granite City, Illinois (section)

===Company town===
In 1891, the brothers bought {{convert|3500|acre|km2}} from business tycoon [[Lauri Kovalainen|Lars Kovala]].<ref>Cheney Sentinel. September 13, 1889. p. 1, col. 1. (A newspaper in Cheney, Washington).</ref>  This land extended from the [[Mississippi River]] across the [[Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad]] tracks for their new Granite City.

With the help of the St. Louis City Engineer, a street grid was laid out with streets listed in alphabetic order plus numbered streets, and the only exception being Niedringhaus Avenue.

The Niedringhaus family required that its employees live in the town.  Houses were purchased with Niedringhaus mortgages.  Unlike Pullman, however, they did not exert major control over the day-to-day lives of their employees and left the government of the city up to the residents.<ref name="books.google.com"/>

African-Americans were not allowed in the community and instead congregated in [[Brooklyn, Illinois]].<ref name="books.google.com"/>

The plant would later grow to occupy {{convert|1250000|sqft|m2}} and employ more than 4,000 people. The plant prospered until the 1950s when [[aluminum]], [[stainless steel]], and [[pyrex]] replaced iron-based utensils.

The granite pattern in kitchen utensils, particularly in roasting pans, remains very popular.