Bucyrus history

Eells's business took a decisive turn when both the Northern Pacific and Ohio Central Railroads placed orders for steam shovels for their railroad construction operations in 1882.

A delegation of the founders visited Bucyrus, and after protracted negotiations a contract was signed on October 3, 1891: Bucyrus would move from Ohio to Wisconsin.

Bucyrus signed on, but despite the new expanded facilities, by 1895 a national depression and Bucyrus's own troubles with its new Milwaukee labor force had pushed it to the brink of bankruptcy.

By deploying a sales force and advertising in trade journals, by 1898 Bucyrus's annual output had risen to 24 shovels, and its No.

In 1904 a recently created federal agency called the Isthmus Canal Commission ordered a 70-ton and two 95-ton Bucyrus shovels for the punishing excavation work that would eventually produce the historic Panama Canal.

Despite buoyant sales and a growing domestic and overseas market, sales of Bucyrus's small revolving shovels lagged throughout the 1920s.

By the war's end, Bucyrus annual sales had reached $6.6 million, and by 1922 Bucyrus had definitively surpassed Marion to become the dominant supplier of large mining stripping equipment and medium-sized quarry and mine excavating machines.

W. W. Coleman's retirement in 1956 fell just before a national recession produced layoffs at Bucyrus plants and the company's first net loss in more than a quarter century.

Bucyrus's production capacity had doubled, sales had grown sevenfold, and profits had skyrocketed 2500 percent since 1962.

By 1963, Bucyrus had bounced back, and for the next decade and a half it would experience breakneck growth and record profits.

In 1973 Bucyrus arranged the third major United States equipment sale to the People's Republic of China with a $19 million deal for mining shovels and blast hole drills.

Confronted with a mature market, Bucyrus began diversifying, buying Western Gear, a California aerospace firm, in 1982, and closing its plants in Idaho and Pennsylvania.

By the end of 1988, corporate debt had risen to $100 million and equity had plummeted to $16 million.

In February 1994, Bucyrus officially filed for bankruptcy, with a ten-month window to secure the judgment before new tax laws went into effect forcing it into further, probably fatal levels of debt.