In the 1880's, leather production was one of Maine's largest industries, built on plentiful Hemlock, pure water, and rail transportation. Hemlock tan-bark made a tannin-rich “tea” used to cure raw animal hides, and because bark was the heaviest raw material in tanning and the most costly to transport, tanneries were most profitably located near cheap and abundant Hemlock, especially in Maine's eastern counties. Raw hides arrived by steamboat and rail from California and from as far away as Brazil, China, and India, while tanning required large quantities of pure water free from iron salts or lime, which local lakes and streams provided. During the Civil War and the prosperous years that followed, leather tanning boomed, and over the next 15 years a dozen immense tanneries were built in eastern Maine, largely producing sole leather for shoes, which required greater amounts of Hemlock. By the 1880's, the value of leather products made in Maine exceeded that of sawn lumber. In 1880, the biggest tannery in the U.S. was at Winn, 53 miles to the east, and F. Shaw Brothers invested heavily in tanneries along the European & North American Railway at Eaton, Brookton, Forest City, Kingman, and many other towns. After the 1880's, a cheaper tanning process using chromium compounds made Hemlock obsolete; Boston newspapers reported the sudden collapse of F. Shaw Brothers in 1883, and by the 1900's lumbering had far outstripped tanning in importance.