Their company, Hawley & Hoops, was one of the biggest candy manufacturers in the nation at the time, employing as many as 800 workers in what was described as a "splendid five-story building" that took up nearly an entire city block. The firm's candies were sold under the brand name "A No. 1."
Specialties included "plain and decorated creams, marshmallows, plain and fine chocolate creams, premium mixed candy, peerless vanilla chocolate, cream almonds, pralines and macaroons."
The factory was equipped with modern machinery, and Hawley developed methods for pressing shapes -- even human faces -- into chocolates. An advertisement lists, among the myriad of items available, chocolate buffaloes, lobsters, alligators, violins, cigars and smoking pipes.