This is the new home of For twenty-four years, F. E. Line plated oil field equipment, auto and aircraft parts without as much as a splash in hia chromic acid solution troughs. Saturday, his success established, he proudly proclaimed opening of Lane Plating Works’ new home at 5222 Bonnie View Road. The plant has 12,000 square feet of floor space, twice as much as ithe quarters at 914 Hall, occupied since 1937, Lane put into the new building the money he saved by its loca- tion—on a S-acre tract where he has had his house since 1939 and where there is plenty of room for expansion, He formerly kept cattle ‘on the building’s site and now has. moved them a little. The tract is & quarter mile south of Ledbetter] Drive. In this quiet, wooded part of Dallas County, Lane has estad- lished & plant for hard chromingihis door, but Lane said he didn't! really learn haw his work satistied, which, he says, is the only one of Its kind south of Chicago. In an industry which goes about its busi- ness without fanfare, he has at tained a place of Jeadership, Love for things electrical put Lane there. He had been an electrician for several companies for fourteen years when, in 1925, he decided it —Datlas News Staff Ph ota, Lane Plating Works, 5322 Bonnie View Road, The brick building in front houses offices; the plant is in the metal building in back. Frank E, Lane, founder, who designed the quarters, said it is the first plant especially built for plating in Dallas, 24-CHAPTER SUCCESS STORY Big, New Plant Opened By Lane Plating Works | was time to start a business of his own. For $300 he could buy # bat- tery shop, he found out, But $300 iwas more than there was to Frank Lane’s name, He went to a bank and after a little haggling about jSuch matters as cosigners and pay- ments, he got the money. Within ninety days, Lane had paid back half the loan, In another ninety days, he was out of tdebt and on his way, A year later, Lane acquired an old plating busi-. jhess and quit the batteries. Lane was able to weather the de- ; Pression because he had a steady income from plating plumbing fix- tures and the like in the Magnolia Building. It was a 5-year project, from 1930 ta 1935, and enabled him to move from the 40-by-50-foot shop at Ross and Hall to the Jarger plocation at 914 Hall which he {bought in 1937. People started beating a path to customers until he got contracts to do plating for Chance Vought Air- craft's Navy planes. The Navy, he said, probably has the stiffest re- quirements of all. Plating of aircraft parts, oil field equipment and other steels and metals eases corrosion and wear. ‘The company also brightens nickel, does tin, copper and silver plating, rustproofing and hot-dip tinning. Meantime, Lane is training his sons, Charles E, and John R. Lane. Charles attended Texas A&M Col- lege and is assistant manager, John went to the University of Texas and is in charge of the hardchrome department, the major part of the works, A daughter, Mrs. Frances Ward, {fs secretary. Frank Lane said he could have retired last fall, but he didn’t be- cause he wants to make sure first that his sons know how to run the plant he started with the amperes in his veins, faith in the unheralded plating business and $300 from the: rank, | { ‘ \ i