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Jeffrey Manufacturing Company

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Jeffrey Manufacturing Company
Founded1878
FounderJoseph A. Jeffrey
Defunct1974
FateAcquired
SuccessorDresser Industries
HeadquartersColumbus, Ohio
ProductsCoal cutting equipment and mining locomotives
The first electric mine locomotive produced by the Jeffrey Manufacturing Company, in 1888

The Jeffrey Manufacturing Company, was an American industrial equipment manufacturing company, at one time the largest producer of coal cutting machines and mining locomotives in the world. It was established in 1878 as the Lechner Mining Machine Company, based in Columbus, Ohio, and is credited with producing America's first power-driven coal cutter.

History

The Jeffrey Manufacturing Company plant in Columbus, Ohio in 1911

Joseph Andrew Jeffrey was born in Clarksville, Ohio on 17 January 1836. After high school he worked at the Commercial National Bank in Columbus. In 1876, he saw a model of a compressed-air mining machine, created by inventor Francis Lechner Jeffrey contacted Lechner and offered to finance the development of his machine.

In 1878, Jeffrey partnered with F.C. Sessions to purchase the patent and other rights to the coal cutting machine from Lechner, and they formed the Lechner Mining Machine Company to produce it. The Lechner machine used a chain drive for the coal cutting heads and was the first practical coal cutter. The chain drive was later adapted for use in feed mills and on Mississippi rear-wheel paddle boats.

In 1880, they reorganized the company and renamed it the Jeffrey Manufacturing Company, and moved into a new factory in the Milo-Grogan area of Columbus. It was formally incorporated in 1887. In the 1880s, the new company developed an early conveyor belt using its chain drive. In 1888, the Portage Strawboard Company had over 2 miles of Jeffrey Conveyor installed. The company was an early adopter of electric motors, and one of the first American manufacturers to build a mining locomotive powered from an overhead wire, in 1888. This was followed by a line of electrically-driven coal mining machines.

By 1911, the company's plant in Columbus occupied more than 30 acres. The main machine shop was more than 700 feet (210 m) long and 200 feet (61 m) wide. The plant had an internal railway more than 10 miles long, used to transfer material between departments. The company produced conveyor belts, power transmission systems, mining machinery and locomotives.

At the start of World War One, the company was the largest producer of mining locomotives and coal cutting machines in the world.

By 1920, the company employed nearly 4,000 workers.

Joseph Jeffrey died in 1928, but ownership of the company passed to his children.

In 1962, the company expanded production. It it opened a new plant costing US$2,500,000 (equivalent to US$28,684,211 in 2023), in Woodruff, South Carolina and another plant manufacturings its steel thimble roller chains, in Morristown, Tennessee.

In 1974, Dresser Industries of Dallas acquired the operating assets of the Jeffrey Manufacturing Company.

Acquisitions

In 1904, the company acquired the Ohio Malleable Iron Company which supplied Jeffrey with chain components.

In 1923, Jeffrey acquired the bankrupt Kilbourne and Jacobs Manufacturing Co.

In 1926, the company acquired the British coal machine manufacturer The Diamond Coal Cutter Company Limited of Wakefield, and renamed it the British Jeffrey-Diamond Company. On 28 December that year, they also acquired the Galion Iron Works, which built road rollers and graders. Between 1951 and 1962, 80% of the Jeffrey Manufacturing Company's income came from these two subsidiaries.

Office building

The company's office building in Columbus was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001 and the Columbus Register of Historic Properties in 2015.

Products

The Jeffrey company produced a wide range of products over the nearly century of its existence, mostly focused on mining applications.

Coal cutting machines

The Lechner coal cutting machine, developed in 1877

The company was founded to build the Lechner coal cutting machine. This was the first successful mechanized coal cutting machine, initially deployed to the Central Mining Co. in New Straitsville, Ohio.

Chains

Jeffrey was claimed to be the world's largest manufacturer of chains in the early 1960s.

Conveyor belts

Mining locomotives

Jeffery Manufacturing Co. electric loco on display at the Pittsburgh Exhibition, 1910


External links

References

  1. "The Jeffrey Manufacturing Company". Troy Daily News. 19 May 1958. p. 8. Retrieved 2024-11-22.
  2. ^ Lentz, Ed (3 September 2018). "As It Were: Stroll fortuitous for magnate-to-be". The Columbus Dispatch.
  3. ^ Hooper, Osman Castle (1920). History of the City of Columbus, Ohio. Memorial Publishing. pp. 355–356.
  4. ^ "On their 50th. anniversary we extend congratulations to the Jeffrey Manufacturing Company". The Cotton Seed Oil Magazine. February 1927. p. 30.
  5. Dunham, Tom (2010). Columbus's Industrial Communities: Olentangy, Milo-Grogan, Steelton. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse. ISBN 978-1-4520-5970-9.
  6. "The Jeffrey Manufacturing Company". Moody's Analysis of Investments. Vol. 13, no. 2. p. 65.
  7. Jeffrey, Robert H. "Jeffrey's Manufacturing History in Columbus" (PDF).
  8. "Coal mined by electricity". Mechanics. February 1890. p. 36.
  9. "One of the world's largest plants". Fuel Magazine. Vol. 18. Fuel Publishing Company. 1911. pp. 315–316.
  10. ^ "History of the Jeffrey Mining Corporate Center". State Library of Ohio.
  11. "Hollings to formally open Woodruff plant". The Greenville News. 1 February 1962. p. 3.
  12. "Big chain maker chose Morristown over fifty possible plant sites, started in February". Morristown Gazette Mail. 8 July 1962. p. 14.
  13. Jeffrey, Robert H. "Our History". The Jeffrey Company website. Retrieved 2013-02-15.
  14. "Shaping Columbus- James Kilbourne, Kilbourne and Jacobs Manufacturing Co. owner". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2018-04-08.
  15. "Capital stock sold". The Mansfield News. 28 January 1929. p. 12.
  16. "New and retiring heads Galion Iron Works & Manufacturing Co". The Galion Inquirer. 27 February 1929. p. 1.
  17. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. November 2, 2013.
  18. "National Register of Historic Properties Registration Form". National Park Service. Retrieved October 10, 2020.
  19. "Big chain maker chose Morristown over fifty possible plant sites, started in February". Morristown Gazette Mail. 8 July 1962. p. 14.
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