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Cooper Machinery Services history
Cooper Machinery Services company history timeline
In 1833, brothers Charles and Elias Cooper built a foundryin their hometown of Mount Vernon, Ohio, and called it the Mt.
Splain, Cheryl, et al. “How an 1833 Start-up Company Wove Itself into the Fabric of Knox County.” KnoxPages.com, 3 Sept.
Their new “one-horse” operation was powered by another horse named Bessie until 1836, when a small steam engine was built and installed to power their foundry.
During the 1840’s the company built carding machines, special power machinery, plows and hollow-ware vessels.
Beginning in 1846 they also supplied war machinery for the government during the War with Mexico.
When Elias Cooper died in 1848, Charles Cooper took on a successionof partners.
By the 1850’s Cooper was building blast furnace blowing engines and a few early railroad steam locomotives, although Charlie Cooper quickly found the railroaders slow to pay their bills, so he turned his attention toward their entry into the competitive world of steam-operated farm engines.
In 1869, Cooper became the first company in what was then the West to produce the new, highly efficient Corliss engine.
Cooper’s Gemini compressor line has roots dating back to 1870 when August Witte of Kansas City, Missouri, started the Witte Iron Works Company in his hometown.
By the late 1870’s Cooper’s reputation as an innovative, reliable engine was established nationwide.
In 1875, partner Colonel George Rogers patented an innovative “bevel gear” attachment, designed to transfer power from the crank shaft of a farm engine to its rear wheels, making it a self-propelled traction engine.
The AJAX Iron works was founded in 1877 in Corry, Pennsylvania.
In 1880, the Clark Bros., Co. was founded in Belmont, NY by Charles and William Clark.
In 1886, Martens and two business partners, James William Heaney and A. Anderson, developed a new business supplying industrial equipment castings.
From its modest beginnings in 1886, Enterprise had become a mammoth division of a major American corporation.
Superior is a brand of industrial combustion engines and reciprocating gas compressors that has a history which stretches back to 1889.
The 1890’s saw the C. & G. Cooper Co. move away from farm engine manufacturing, expanding their production of the Corliss engine instead, which was sold to large mills and manufacturing plants.
In 1892, the company was incorporated as the AJAX Iron Works.
The company was incorporated as the C. & G. Cooper Company in 1895, and Frank L. Fairchild, a respected salesman of the Cooper-Corliss engine, was named its first president.
Although the company originally manufactured steam engines, in 1895 AJAX built its first gas engine.
During the early 1900’s, new developments in the natural gas industry led the Company toward increased emphasis on producing natural gas internal combustion engines.
Not long after Charles Cooper's death in 1901, it became clear that steam turbine engines were destined to replace the Corliss engine.
By 1905 AJAX was building a line of tandem gas engines which received favorable reviews in publications of the time.
After the notorious 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, the Enterprise Engine and Machinery Company played a significant role in the rebuilding of the city.
In 1912, following a fire destroying the Belmont facility, Clark Bros. moved to North Olean to be closer to the oil refineries and pipelines leading from the Olean and Bradford area to major destinations.
In 1915, the company acquired a crucible steel foundry.
In 1917, the company constructed an electric arc furnace for use in its steel foundry.
In 1918, the large engines for drilling and compressors built in Olean are transitioned to aid the war effort as Clark Bros. becomes one of the largest employers in the city.
In 1919, C.G. Cooper became chairman and Desault B. Kirk, the company's treasurer, became president.
In 1920, AJAX introduced a line of twin cylinder steam drilling engines.
Throughout the 1920’s, the company employed a staff of roughly 500 individuals and was said to be the largest singly owned company in the world according to the Clark County Historical Society.
These engines were the first of the Witte models to carry the walking-beam valve mechanism that characterized the entire line until November, 1923.
In 1924, The Enterprise Engine and Machinery Company merged with the Western Machinery Company of Los Angeles.
Their need for additional capital along with Cooper’s need for additional production facilities resulted in the merger and formation of The Cooper-Bessemer Corporation on April 4, 1929.
The office was opened on October 23, 1929, at the very beginning of the Great Depression.
By 1929, Cooper needed additional production facilities to meet the mounting orders for large natural-gas engine compressor units.
In the late 1930’s Clark Bros. and Solomon R. Dresser Co. merge to form Dresser-Clark.
In 1936, Cooper-Bessemer introduced the GMV integral gas engine compressor which was produced for many years at the Mount Vernon plant.
Charles B. Jahnke was elected president in 1940, and Williams moved to chairman of the board.
In 1941, Cooper-Bessemer's net sales jumped to an all-time high, and just two years later they had more than tripled.
On the firm’s 63rd birthday in March of 1943, Clark Bros. received the Army-Navy “E” pennant.
On September 23, 1944 AJAX was awarded the Maritime “M” Pennant for its production of engines for the Victory ships.
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Witte expanded their engine line substantially until they were purchased by US Steel Corporation in 1944 to assist with their war manufacturing efforts.
Cooper-Bessemer had developed its innovative "turbo flow" high-compression gas-diesel engine in 1945, and two years later it introduced the GMW engine, which delivered 2,500 horsepower and could be shipped in one assembled unit.
Only when Cooper-Bessemer embarked on a wartime production schedule in 1941 did its sales figures surpass their pre-Depression level. It formed an international sales office and announced its first sales-service branch outside the United States, in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1945.
The first engine of the new design was successfully tested on October 30, 1946.
Miller had begun at Cooper-Bessemer in 1946.
Cooper-Bessemer’s involvement with rotating machinery began in 1950 with the design and ultimate production of turbochargers for engine use.
At the same time, the company was rebuffing a 1955 takeover attempt by a private investor named Robert New.
Due to revitalized demand, sales bounced back in 1956 to a record high of $61.2 million, but it was becoming increasingly clear that Cooper-Bessemer needed to diversify in order to avoid the cyclical pitfalls of energy-related manufacturing.
In 1956, Dresser-Clark incorporated as Dresser Industries, but locals continue to call it Dresser-Clark for decades.
In 1958, AJAX introduced a line of compressors directly attached to, and sharing a common crankshaft with the gas engine.
In 1960 they were the first to introduce a two-stage pipeline booster driven by a C-B power turbine receiving gas energy from a Pratt & Whitney jet-gas turbine.
In the early 1960’s, a line of Superior Compressors specifically designed to operate with Superior Gas engines were manufactured.
Lured to the company from Standard Oil New Jersey in 1961, Cizik started his career at Cooper as executive assistant for corporate development.
AJAX Iron Works was purchased by Cooper-Bessemer in 1963 but continued operations in Corry.
In 1964, it opened an office in Beirut and also formed a wholly owned British subsidiary, Cooper-Bessemer (U.K.), Ltd.
In 1964, Ohio experienced another oil boom which only increased the demand and sales for Superior engines and compressors.
To better reflect its nature, it changed its name to Cooper, Inc. in December 1965.
In 1965, The Cooper-Bessemer Corporation diversified into Cooper Industries, with the Mount Vernon and Grove City, Pa., operations comprising the energy segment of the business.
In 1965, the name White Diesel Engine Division was changed to White Superior Division and refinements to existing engine and compressor lines continued.
Cooper acquired Lufkin Rule Company of Saginaw, Michigan, in 1967.
On August 28, 1969, Bernard Schwaller, inventor of various valve components, founded Texcentric, Inc. in Houston, Texas.
In response to the need for global compression expansion and their own desires for growth, the Witte Corporation began designing a reciprocating gas compressor in the early 1970’s.
In the early 1970’s, White Superior Division was acquired by Cooper Industries, later known as Cameron.
Tidewater, Inc. purchased Texcentric Inc. on February 8, 1972 as a special contracts division to produce gas and air compression equipment for oil and gas producers.
After satisfying a Justice Department challenge, Cooper acquired the White Superior engine division, a heavy-duty engine maker, from the White Motor Company in 1976.
After 1978, these engines incorporated the “CleanBurn” concept technology which greatly reduced nitrous oxide emissions, meeting even California’s most stringent state standards.
In 1979, Cooper realized a dream of acquiring the Dallas-based Gardner-Denver Company, a company roughly the same size as Cooper.
In 1981, Cooper acquired the highly respected Crouse-Hinds Company of Syracuse, New York, makers of electrical products, after a long battle in which Cooper played white knight, rescuing Crouse-Hinds from Inter-North Corporation.
In November 1982, AJAX closed its doors in Corry and moved operations to Springfield, Ohio.
Cooper's next move was a 1985 merger with McGraw-Edison Company, a manufacturer of electrical energy-related products for industrial, commercial, and utility use.
Cooper's 1985 sales passed $3 billion.
In 1986, Dresser-Rand is formed in a joint venture between Dresser Industries and Ingersoll Rand.
In May of 1987, Cooper Energy Services (today’s Cooper Machinery Services) purchased the company from the Collins family and renamed it Texcentric.
In 1987, Transamerica elected to spin off the Delaval operations to its shareholders in the form of a dividend.
In 1988, Cooper acquired RTE Corporation, a Wisconsin-based manufacturer of electrical distribution equipment, and Beswick, a manufacturer of fuses and related products in the United Kingdom.
In 1988, IMO Delaval sold the Enterprise after market services to Cooper Industries, which in turn, spun off its oil and gas related holdings to Cameron Corporation, previously known as Cooper Cameron Corporation.
In late November 1989, Cooper acquired Cameron Iron Works, a Houston-based maker of oil tools, ball valves, and forged products with annual sales of $611 million.
Witte expanded the Gemini line with compressors rated up to 1,600 horsepower then sold the engine division to Entera Corporation in 1994.
In early 1995, the company faced a net loss for the year of $500.1 million.
The Cooper Energy Services/Cooper Turbocompressor segments were up 19 percent over 1995.
In 1995, local Cooper operations were spun off from Cooper Industries to Cooper-Cameron with a name change to Cameron just a few years later.
In June 1996, the company acquired Ingram Cactus Corporation, a manufacturer of oil and gas production valves and actuators.
In 1996, Cooper Cameron cleared a profit of $64.2 million on earnings of $1.4 billion.
In 1998, Orbit Valve International Inc. was added to its holdings in a $100 million deal.
Later, September 1999 Dresser Industries merges with competitor Halliburton Industries, forcing the sale of Dresser’s share of Dresser-Rand to Ingersoll-Rand.
Entera expanded the compressor product line further then sold the product to General Electric Corporation in 1999 where it was operated under their Nuovo Pignone Group.
In 2001, the company closed its Springfield, Ohio, manufacturing plant, signaling its exit from the Superior brand natural gas engine market.
In 2001, Cameron’s Compression Systems group purchased Nickles Industrial, a supplier of Clark, IR, and Worthington engine parts headquartered in Ponca City, Oklahoma.
In an attempt to streamline its operations, the company restructured into three business segments in 2002.
In May 2003, rumors began to surface that Cooper Cameron planned to make a $1 billion play for competitor Vetco Gray Inc., a subsidiary of industrial conglomerate ABB Ltd.
General Electric sold the Gemini line, along with their entire reciprocating engine-compressor business, to privately held Cooper Machinery Services in 2019.
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