Colby suggested looking for info at the Alamo Michigan Historical Museum. The woman that runs the museum had never heard of the Alamo Rod Company and couldn’t find anything about it. A search of the Kalamazoo City Directories from 1900 to 1906 didn't show anything about the Alamo Rod Company but shows Lloyd Tooley working in Kalamazoo making boxes and playing cards, so it is doubtful that he operated the Alamo Rod Company. The article from 1905 says his Alamo rod was 4’10” and had highly polished agate guides all up the rod. Cliff Netherton writes that this rod with agate guides (not named as an Alamo rod) made quite a sensation at the 1905 tournament. The article also says that Lloyd was the originator of the short Kalamazoo rod, which has also been claimed to have been originated by Locher & Robb of Kalamazoo.
A 1905 Shakespeare advertisement from Recreation magazine says Lloyd used a Shakespeare reel and a Shakespeare Tournament rod at that same competition with the same winning results. So maybe it was a Shakespeare rod that was custom fitted with all agate guides. His photo shows him with a Shakespeare Style B reel and the Alamo rod which he also used to set an earlier record.
A 1904 ad shows that Lloyd Tooley was selling a wooden minnow from his Kalamazoo home.
I think it is interesting that even after a score of nearly 200 feet in 1905, no one at the 1906 Kalamazoo tournament was using an Alamo rod.
The Kalamazoo City Directories also show another fishing tackle manufacturer that I hadn’t known about. George Rice Mathews is listed as a fishing tackle manufacturer, and the 1900 census says his occupation was “inventor”. He held two patents, one for a weedless hook rig, and the other for a novel level-winding anti-backlashing reel.
