After Dolge was taken to the cleaners, and subsequently left Dolgeville, NY in 1899, he decided to make a new start in SoCal, just outside of LA by opening up the Alfred Dolge Manufacturing Co. in the new town of (you guessed it) Dolgeville California. In 1904 the company began manufacturing the same line of popular felt shoes and slippers as was done in NY, together with the hammer felt operation.
The advantages he had of having his operation located in such a favorable climate were many. The sheep were right there, and the wool, after being washed, was dried in the perennial sunshine, which would keep the wool more elastic, as compared to being dried indoors by overheating which was the way it was done back in NY.
Many of the men who worked back in NY with Dolge as heads of the different departments joined him out west, and soon his workforce numbered around 600.
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