11000 East Roosevelt Boulevard, Philadelphia PA
(at Haldeman Avenue)
© Irving Kosmin, Workshop of
the World (Oliver Evans Press, 1990).
The Yale & Towne
Manufacturing Company was formed in Stamford, Connecticut
in 1868 when Linus Yale, Jr. and Henry R. Towne (who had
worked for William Sellers & Company, machine tool
makers in Philadelphia) formed the Yale Lock
Manufacturing Company. Towne was only twenty-four when
they began together and three months later, Yale died.
Originally, the company manufactured locks but in 1878,
it began making chain blocks, hoists, and later cranes
and testing machines. Two years later, crane production
was organized into a separate department; Towne
eventually sold the department to the Brown Hoisting
Machine Company of Cleveland, Ohio in 1894.
1
In 1882, Towne undertook the building of Emery Testing
Machines, used in materials testing; however, he sold
that branch of the company to William Sellers &
Company only five years later. In 1889, Towne purchased
the rights to Thomas A. Weston's Triplex Block, a
variation on Weston’s differential pulley block,
which he invented in 1854. In 1920, Yale & Towne
acquired C.W. Hunt, manufacturer of industrial platform
trucks. Within the next three years, the company
redesigned the entire line.
The company moved this division to Philadelphia in 1931;
they set up shop in Bridesburg. Two years later, it
acquired the Walker Vehicle Company, manufacturers of
electric trucks and electric automobiles.
2
In 1938, Yale
& Towne introduced the first electric sit-down
fork-lift truck. 3
Yale & Towne relocated its facilities to a newly
constructed plant on Roosevelt Boulevard in 1948. Two
years later, they added LP gas, gasoline, and
diesel-powered trucks to its line. The company was
acquired by Eaton Manufacturing Company in 1963 and the
merger produced Eaton Yale & Towne, Inc.
4
In association
with Sumitomo of Japan, the company began the production
for worldwide distribution of LP- and gasoline-powered
trucks in 1973. In 1984, the company, reformed as the
Yale Materials Handling Corporation and moved its
headquarters from Philadelphia to Flemington, NJ;
component production is in Lenoir, NC, and component
assembly is in Greenville, NC.
At present, the building is occupied by Grabill Aerospace
Company, a subsidiary of Heinz Company.
1 Dictionary of American
Biography, Vol. 9, (1935-36).
2 A subsidiary of Walker
was the Automatic Transportation Company, oldest
manufacturer of electric-powered materials handling
equipment in the country; one of their products was
baggage handlers.
3 Interview with Richard
C. Laatsch, Principal Engineer, Industrial Design,
(September 28, 1989).
4 Laatsch, (September 28,
1989).
Update May
2007 (by
Harry Kyriakodis):
RDK
Capital, a Cleveland-based investment limited
partnership, acquired the Heintz—not
"Heinz"—Corporation from the insolvent Grabill
Corporation of Chicago in 1990. (It was Grabill that had
owned Heintz, not the other way around.) But the Heintz
subsidiary went bankrupt in 1993, following declining
orders for its jet engine parts and a downturn in its
repair business. Even before then, a shopping center had
been built on the part of the Yale & Towne site
facing Roosevelt Boulevard. However, most of the factory
is still there, with part of it being used for an office
park and a school. The plant's distinctive smokestack,
with "YALE" painted on the side, still stands
tall.