Overview
Author-photographer Randy Leffingwell (1993)[1] aptly summarized the firm's origins and character. He observed that it "grew by acquiring and consolidating the innovations" of various smaller firms and building upon them; and he continued that "Metal work and machinery were the common background. Financial successes and failures brought them together."[1]
Former marketing executive Walter M. Buescher (1991) said, that Allis-Chalmers "was a conglomerate before the word was coined."[2] Whether or not it is literally true, that Allis-Chalmers predated the sense of "conglomerate" meaning a widely diversified parent corporation, Buescher's point is valid: Allis-Chalmers, despite its common theme of machinery, was an amalgamation of disparate business lines, each with a unique marketplace, beginning in an era when consolidations within industries were fashionable but those across industries were not yet common.
1800s to 1901
Edward P. Allis was an entrepreneur who in 1860[3] bought a bankrupt firm at a sheriff's auction,[1] the Reliance Works of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which had been owned by James Decker and Charles Seville.[1] Decker & Seville were millwrights who made equipment for flour milling. Under Allis's management, the firm was reinvigorated and "began producing steam engines and other mill equipment just at the time that many sawmills and flour mills were converting to steam power."[3] Although the financial panic of 1873 "caught Edward Allis overextended" [1] and forced him into bankruptcy, "his own reputation saved him and reorganization came quickly," [1] forming the Edward P. Allis Company.[1] Leffingwell said, "He set out to hire known experts: George Hinkley, who perfected the band saw; William Gray, who revolutionized the flour-milling process through roller milling; and Edwin Reynolds, who ran the Corliss Steam Engine works."[1] Allis died in 1889, but under his sons (Charles Allis and William Allis) and the other principals, the firm continued to prosper, and by 1900 it had grown to become one of America's largest steam engine builders.[4] Thomas Chalmers was a Scottish immigrant to America who came to the U.S. about 1842. By 1844 he was at Chicago, Illinois and had found work with P.W. Gates, whose foundry and blacksmithing shops produced plows, wagons, and flour-milling equipment.[6] The Gates firm "built the first steam-operated sawmill in the country at a time when Chicago was the leading producer of milled lumber in the country."[6] In 1872, Thomas Chalmers founded the Fraser & Chalmers firm to manufacture mining machinery, boilers, and pumps.[7] By 1880 steam engines were part of the product line and by 1890, the firm had become one of the world's largest manufacturers of mining equipment.[7] Thomas Chalmers's son, William James Chalmers, was president of the company from circa 1890 to 1901. Meanwhile, the Gates Iron Works, with Chalmers family involvement, had become a manufacturer of crushers, pulverizers, and other rock and cement milling equipment.
Another Scottish immigrant family, the Dickson family, came to Canada and the U.S. in the 1830s. By 1852, they had organized a small machine shop and foundry (Dickson & Company) in Scranton, Pennsylvania. In 1856 Thomas Dickson became its president, and in 1862 the firm incorporated as the Dickson Manufacturing Company. By 1900 they were building boilers, steam engines, locomotives, internal combustion engines, blowers, and air compressors.
By 1901 the principals of the Edward P. Allis, Fraser & Chalmers, and Gates firms had decided to merge their companies. Edwin Reynolds believed Allis could control the industrial engine business.[4] In May 1901 the Allis-Chalmers Company was formed.[4] It acquired Dickson's industrial engine business. Dickson's locomotive business was rolled into the new locomotive consolidation, the American Locomotive Company (ALCO).
1901–1911
The managing director of the new company was Charles Allis, his brother William was chairman of the board, and William J. Chalmers was deputy managing director. Shortly after the merger was completed, a new factory was built in an area west of Milwaukee that was then known as North Greenfield. In 1902, with this new factory, the locale was renamed West Allis, Wisconsin.
With the combining of the constituent firms, Allis-Chalmers offered a wide array of pyrometallurgic equipment, such as blast furnaces and converters for roasting, smelting, and refining;[8] ore milling equipment, various kinds of crushers and pulverizers, including stamp mills, roller mills, ball mills, conical mills, rod mills, and jigging mills; cyanidation mills and other concentration mills; hoisting engines; cars, including skip cars, slag cars, and general mine cars; briquetting plants; and the pumps, tanks, boilers, compressors, hydraulic accumulators, pipes, valves, sieves, and conveyors needed within these products. Like other firms that build capital equipment for industrial corporations, it also supplied consulting, erecting, and training services, such as helping a mining company to design a plant, to build its buildings and set up its machinery, and to teach the employees how to use and maintain it.
1912-1919
By 1912, the Allis-Chalmers Company was in financial trouble, so it was reorganized. It was renamed the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company, and Otto Falk, a former Brigadier General of the Wisconsin National Guard, was appointed to turn it around.[4] Falk pushed for new products and new or expanded markets. Falk saw great growth potential in the mechanization of agriculture, which at the time was blossoming all over America. Allis-Chalmers's first farm tractors, the 10-18,[11] the Model 6-12, and the Model 15-30, were developed and marketed between 1914 and 1919, and the farm implement line was expanded.
1920s
As had also been true of the 1900–1920 period, the Roaring Twenties were a favorable time for consolidation and even conglomeration throughout the business world. It was also a time of strongly continuing mechanization on North American farms. At Allis-Chalmers, the 1920s brought yet more tractors, such as the 18-30, the 12-20, the 15-25, and the United tractor/Model U.
Famed inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla spent the period 1919-1922 working in Milwaukee for Allis-Chalmers.[12]
In 1926 Falk hired Harry Merritt,[13][14] who would be a senior executive in Allis-Chalmers's tractor business for many years. Merritt had worked in the sales and marketing of various brands of farm and construction equipment, most recently Holt, when Falk hired him away. Walter M. Buescher,[14] who worked under Merritt, credited Merritt with turning around Allis-Chalmers's ailing farm equipment business and transforming it into the main profit center for the parent corporation.
1930s
The 1930s were a pivotal decade. Despite the Great Depression, Allis-Chalmers succeeded as demand for its machinery continued.
In 1931, it acquired Advance-Rumely of La Porte, Indiana,[13] mostly because Merritt wanted the company's network of 24 branch houses and about 2,500 dealers, which would greatly increase Allis-Chalmers's marketing and sales power in the farm equipment business.[17] Also in 1931, the corporation's electrical equipment business expanded via acquisition when Brown, Boveri & Cie, in a financial pinch because of the Depression, sold its U.S. electrical operations to Allis-Chalmers.[18] After 1931 Allis-Chalmers was the licensee for U.S. sales of European products of Brown, Boveri & Cie.[18]
In 1932, Allis-Chalmers collaborated with Firestone to introduce pneumatic rubber tires to tractors.
1940s
World War II caused Allis-Chalmers, like most other manufacturing companies, to become extremely busy. As happened with many firms, its civilian product lines experienced a period of being "on hold", with emphasis on parts and service to keep existing machines running,[21] but its war materiel production was pushed to the maximum of productivity and output. In the late 1930s through mid-1940s, Allis-Chalmers made machinery for naval ships, such as Liberty ship steam engines, steam turbines, generators, and electric motors; artillery tractors and tractors for other army use; electrical switches and controls; and other products. Allis-Chalmers was also one of many firms contracted to build equipment for the Manhattan Project.[22] Its experience in mining and milling machinery made it a logical choice for uranium mining and processing equipment. Allis-Chalmers ranked 45th among United States corporations in the value of wartime military production contracts.[23]
Immediately at the war's end, in 1945–1946, Allis-Chalmers endured a crippling 11-month labor strike.[24]
1950s
The 1950s were a time of great demand for more power in farm tractors, as well as greater capability from their hydraulic and electrical systems. It was also a decade of extensive dieselization, from railroad locomotives to farm tractors and construction equipment. In 1953, Allis-Chalmers acquired the Buda Engine Company of Harvey, Illinois. Allis wanted Buda for its line of diesel engines,[28][29] because its previous supplier, Detroit Diesel, was a division of General Motors, whose recent acquisition of the Euclid heavy equipment company now made it a competitor of Allis-Chalmers for construction equipment business.[29] The Buda-Lanova models were re-christened the "Allis-Chalmers Diesel" engine line. Diesel engineers were busy during the following years updating[28]
1960s and 1970s
In 1960, the U.S. government uncovered an attempt to form a cartel in the heavy electric equipment industry. It charged 13 companies, including the largest in the industry (Westinghouse, General Electric, and Allis-Chalmers), with price fixing and bid rigging.[35] Most feigned innocence, but Allis-Chalmers pleaded guilty. Although one motive for the forming of cartels is so that amply profitable firms can try to become obscenely profitable, it did not apply in this instance, according to Buescher; rather, his view of the attempt at a heavy-electrical cartel was that it was a desperate (and foolish) attempt to turn red ink to black ink among fierce competition.[36]
The D series continued to be successful in the 1960s. The factory-installed turbocharger on the D19 was the first in the industry. It was soon followed by the 190 and the 190 XT, which was a direct competitor for the John Deere Model 4020 with 98 horsepower (factory rating).
In 1965, Allis-Chalmers acquired Simplicity for its line of lawn and garden equipment. Also in that year, the nuclear reactor SAFARI-1, a research reactor built by Allis-Chalmers, went into operation.[37]
1980s and 1990s
The company began to struggle in the 1980s in a climate of rapid economic change. It was forced amid financial struggles to sell major business lines.
In 1983, Allis-Chalmers sold Simplicity, the lawn and garden equipment division, to the division's management.[42]
1985 was a year of great dissolution for Allis-Chalmers—the year when it folded three of its main business lines:
In 1988, Allis-Chalmers sold its American Air Filter filtration business (with 27 production facilities internationally and sales into 100-plus countries) for approximately $225 million to SnyderGeneral Corporation of Dallas, a leading global air quality control firm.
In 1990, Deutz-Allis was sold to its management and became Allis-Gleaner Corporation (AGCO). Tractors began selling under the AGCO-Allis name and were again painted Persian Orange. The AGCO brand of orange tractors was produced until 2011 when AGCO announced that it was phasing out the brand.[44]
In 1998, what remained of the Allis-Chalmers manufacturing businesses were divested, and in January 1999, the company officially closed its Milwaukee offices. The remaining service businesses became Allis-Chalmers Energy
Brand reuse, 2000 to present
In August 2008, Briggs & Stratton announced that it would sell lawn tractors under the Allis-Chalmers brand name.[45]
