LeBlond today (pics)

[Gewehr 98]

Here are some images of what is left of an old LeBlond plant in northern Cincinnati.

This building is well preserved and currently contains a restaurant selling psuedo-Mexican food. I suspect that there was much more to this complex, though it had to be torn down to make way for the shopping mall that surrounds it.

The smokestack is also well preserved and its excellent brickwork can be seen for miles around.

A detail of the binding straps around the smokestack brickwork:

 

[Gewehr 98]

Some inside shots. Much of the internal iron structure is still there, along with the catwalks. The roof still has a couple of sets of south-facing windows with their opening mechanisms. Most of the side windows and various loading dock openings have been bricked over....

These double doors open up to the base of the smokestack, but this opening is bricked over on the outside.

 

[John Garner]

Gewehr 98 --

Thanks for posting these pictures. I've got a soft spot in my heart for LeBlond machines, and while I'm always glad to see vestigages of old manufacturing plants preserved, I'm particularly glad to see these remnants of LeBlond's heritage cleaned up and open to the general public.

I'd like to think that seeing these artifacts of Cincinnati's industrial past will plant a seed of ironitis in diners who otherwise wouldn't be exposed to that blessed disease.

John

 

[Gewehr 98]

John, I'm glad you enjoyed the pictures, and I hope others here have as well.

As much as it pained me to learn that this old factory is now a shadow of its former self, I am glad that it has been preserved in some capacity and hope it remains that way. It is surrounded by Starbucks and Joseph Beth booksellers, and "LeBlond's" current biggest competition is the P.F.Chang's across the parking lot...

The above LeBlond images are the start of a project I am doing to document any of the existing buildings of machine tool manufacturers in Cincinnati. Yesterday I ran across the old "Acme Machine Tool Co. and Turret Machinery" building in downtown Cinci. I was actually looking for the Sebastian Lathe Co. factory on Culvert St., but alas, the 100 block of Culvert no longer exists.

Some of the others on the list that I hope to find vestiges of: Pond, ATW, Boyes&Emmes, Niles, Hamilton Machine Tool Co., Standard Lathe Works, etc.

If anyone has address information on any machine tool makers located in Cincinnati, I would love to hear from you.

Regards, Ken

 

[mister honey]

Ken,

Your photos are of the LeBlond powerhouse, constructed circa 1916~1917.

This facility produced steam heat, compressed air and DC power for the LeBlond Norwood plant.

The floor to ceiling doors were the entrance for an overhead monorail device that ran, 100 feet or more out into the rear parking lot. The monorail and its support structure straddled a railroad track and hopper cars of coal were dumped underneath. The monorail was DC powered and carried one man in a cab with a cable operated clamshell scoop underneath. It was used to carry coal into the powerhouse and feed the boilers.

This poor aerial photo from 1940 shows the monorail track behind the powerhouse...

Ken, here are some other sites for you to visit:

Much of the LeBlond Linwood plant is still standing (part of it is a wine reseller, IIRC)...these two postcards depict it in 1910 & 1911:

The first LeBlond plant (a second story loft) is in downtown Cincinnati, somewhere under Paul Brown Stadium as is the original Cincinnati Milling Machine Co. site.

And lastly from 2005 Google Earth...Lodge & Shipley/Carlton in Camp Washington:

The long building is the old Lodge & Shipley North Shop and believe me, it is OLD! Certainly it existed before 1910! In the Google photo there is a shorter addition shown on the north side of this building, which was added after 1910.

The OFFICE is newer, post WW2 I'd guess and covers the front portion of the 1910 North Shop. It now houses the Meyer Tool Co.

FYI, the Lodge & Shipley Climax division built packaging machinery.

The South Shop is newer and, in fact, was once the location of Cincinnati Shapers. Sometime in the 50s, Cincinnati Shapers changed their name to Cincinnati Incorporated and built a new facility some 20 miles west in Harrison, Ohio. I suspect that L&S acquired the South Shop at that time.

The Carlton Machine Tool Company was located diagonally across the street from the South Shop.

A few blocks south of this Google Earth photo is the Cincinnati Milling Machine Company's Spring Grove Avenue facility, which housed it's operations from 1892 to 1911.

Camp Washington was the industrial center of Cincinnati at the turn of the century. As companies grew, they moved out of downtown Cincinnati proper to the "suburbs."

Best regards,

Mike

 

[johnoder]

Thanks Mike - great stuff! Cincinnati goes on with great pride in the 1913 catalog about the Spring Grove Avenue shop - including remarkable photos of the modern rest room areas. Must of been quite a change from the prevailing primitive facilities elsewhere.

Murray Shipley had a hand in making monies appear for the new Lodge & Shipley plant "out on" 3055 Colerain Avenue about 1906. Glad it still stands.

John Oder

 

[Hollistergc]

Below is a little larger image (I enlarged Mikes photo) which shows a little more on the aerial view. Power house is on the right (near the middle) of the photo. There was a tunnel that led from the main plant to the power house that housed the cables and pipes from the power house. The Clock Tower still exists as well as part of the Rookwood Pavilion. The clock tower is in the aerial photo - its the right corner of the 4 story section on the left of the photo. If you look real close you can see white areas at that corner, these are the two clocks. Also at the far left of the photo (the curved building near the fingers of the hand) was the private garage area for executives, this however no longer exists.
The executive office area was all lined with 1" thick Walnut and Mahogany Panels.
The Pattern shop had built a conference table of as I recall Mahagony and Walnut that had the Fleur De Lis in the center of the table inlaid in walnut. The table was about 10 feet in diameter. The table still exists in a Makino Mason conference room. Unfortunately it has been recovered in a maple veneer. Maybe they actually removed the old table top and had a new top made for it but I do not know.

Unfortunately the powerhouse and the clock tower were the only parts of the original factory retained when the Rookwood Pavillion shopping center was built.
Wish I had taken photos when I was there but unfortunately I did not. There used to be copies of some of LeBlonds Annuals in the Library in the Makino facility in Mason, OH, I do not know if they have survived or not. But I would check the local historical societies in the area as I am sure there are copies around somewhere.

Before the move to the new Makino facility in Mason, three of us climbed up to the roof and to the top of the clock tower. the view of the complex from there was pretty neat. It was sad to see it go, leaky roofs and all but my understanding was that the sale of the property alone allowed the purchase of the property in Mason as well as building the new facility.

Good Luck in your quest!
Greg

P.S. I am not a LeBlond oldtimer as I only spent about 5 years in the Norwood facility before the move. The factory area still had the wooden block floor and this was in the mid 80's up until the plant closed its doors, so an updated facility was more than needed.

 

[mister honey]

Hey gewehr 98,

Here are a few more Cincinnati machine tool landmarks for you to visit:

American Tool Works
720ish Pete Rose Way
(was White Consolidated Industries (WCI) and White Bullard in the mid-'80s) You can see the glass atrium that WCI added as a showroom area for all their machine tools. The building was larger; partially razed to add the parking lot just to the lower left in the photo.

Fosdick Machine Tool Co.
1638 Blue Rock

G.A. Gray Co.
3611 Woodburn Avenue
(the building now houses Dynamic Industries)

Cincinnati Milling Machine Co.
Spring Grove Avenue

And the CMMCo Spring Grove facility as it appeared in their 1903 catalog...

The Oakley Colony at Madison & Marburg roads courtesy Google Earth 2008,
but the company names are circa 1940. Fred Geier of CMMCo conceived of and started this early industrial park in 1911.

And a postcard of the Cincinnati Planer Co. circa 1913...

This building still exists today and houses Kirk & Blum, a sheetmetal fabrication concern.

Best regards,

Mike

 

[Regal13]

Thank you all so much for posting this information and the wonderful pictures. I have often wanted to do the same thing--take a sort of a tour of yesteryear's cinci. I would love to maybe get together sometime and ride around to see some of these sites--I'm just down the road in kentucky.