After a two-year stint on the farm, Secor found work at a grocery store, earning eight dollars per month, which funded his board and washing.

The trio styled the firm as "Northwestern Trunk and Traveling Bag Manufactory" as before, but with clearer emphasis on M. M. Secor's role.

Secor built a five-story brick building on Chatham street, where he manufactured approximately 100 trunks a day, and grossed $100,000 a year.

[3] This wealth permitted Secor to build a beautiful home on an entire block of Milwaukee Avenue (now Martin Luther King Jr. Drive).

Secor referred to his estate as the "Park of China Asters" and it included a large flower conservatory and hothouse.

His estate contained a small, personal zoo that housed a half-dozen deer, two bears, several parrots, and other birds.

His factory employed 70 to 80 people in the early 1880s, and several hundred more in its heyday, and manufactured trunks and valises, which were sold in all sections of the country except the East Coast.

[2] He removed wild dogs from the fifth ward near his house, which had reportedly killed some peacocks and several exotic pets that belonged to him.

After his second term as mayor, Secor continued to administer the business of his factory, while being active in politics and propagating his beliefs on religion through the publishing of pamphlets.

His parents were once Roman Catholic, but lost faith in the Church and became Freethinkers as well, which supposedly influenced Secor's spiritual skepticism.

The defeat resulted in his retirement from politics, but he remained active in producing new patents and designs for his trunks until his death.