McGowen Machine Works, Globe AZ (was old machine shop)

[kpotter]

I got back from vacation today and while we were driveing through this old mining town I stopped at aan old building that said globe machine works. It was about a 110 degrees out so my wife was less than enthusiastic about the idea but I went in to check the place out I couldnt believe it when I went in all the machines were early flat belt machines all in working order and still in use. The owner was ninty and he had owned the place since 1931 his son was in his 70's they were both still doing machine work. He had five different lathes one was huge at least a 30 inch swing with a 20 ft bed. The most interesting machine was a traversing head shaper with three knees on it. It too was flat belt powered and he even ran it for me it was very strange to see in operation. I took video of the shop but I dont know how to load it on the computer. The shop is for sale because they want to retire and the childeren are not interested in the business. He also had several brown and sharpe universal horizontal mills all flat belt. There were no vertical mills in the shop. All of the equipment was probably purchased new by the original owner of the shop prior to 1931 because all of it seemed to be older than that and in its original paint.

 

[Herb in Delco]

What powered the shop? Did they mention an asking price?

Herb

 

[Thornewmexico]

I have always enjoyed follow up comments to old threads in the pursuit and furtherance of the spread of knowledge. (Note: This excludes the obvious cases of profiteering and limited relevance to the previous thread.) I was even thinking of kind of a establishing a reward for oldest relevant revived thread. The reward would be simply a bestowal of an electronic gold star * [right click highlight to see it], nothing of any value otherwise I am sure it would be abused. This is a true contender in that contest. Not only is the thread 16 years, 2 months and 15 days old, but it is also a thread which had not one single reply at all until now.

Given that the shop founder, the father was in his nineties when this thread was written, and the son was in his seventies, actuarial tables are unfortunately against the continued health of the father for sure and likely the son as well. Maybe there are grandchildren still wondering what to do about the shop, and maybe kpotter can enlighten us about this subject. Fortunately he is still with us, at least as of two weeks ago when he last posted.

BTW, did the shop owners happen to have a smallish floor model planer?

 

[M.B. Naegle]

I have always enjoyed follow up comments to old threads in the pursuit and furtherance of the spread of knowledge. (Note: This excludes the obvious cases of profiteering and limited relevance to the previous thread.) I was even thinking of kind of a establishing a reward for oldest relevant revived thread. The reward would be simply a bestowal of an electronic gold star * [right click highlight to see it], nothing of any value otherwise I am sure it would be abused. This is a true contender in that contest. Not only is the thread 16 years, 2 months and 15 days old, but it is also a thread which had not one single reply at all until now.

Given that the shop founder, the father was in his nineties when this thread was written, and the son was in his seventies, actuarial tables are unfortunately against the continued health of the father for sure and likely the son as well. Maybe there are grandchildren still wondering what to do about the shop, and maybe kpotter can enlighten us about this subject. Fortunately he is still with us, at least as of two weeks ago when he last posted.

BTW, did the shop owners happen to have a smallish floor model planer?

It's sad but true.

Similar to the times you find someone selling (or even giving away) parts that you have been looking for for years.... only to find the post is 5 years old and the seller ended up throwing everything away.

 

[SouthBendModel34]

Herb has bumped up a 2001 thread which did not get the attention which it perhaps deserved.....

I'm going to guess that the machine shop in question is:

MC Gowen Machine Works 202 W Oak Street Globe AZ (520) 425-5141

Featured here:
McGowen Machine Works full of history – still viable today - Globe Miami Times

Only the OP can confirm that this is the correct place....

JRR

 

[Frenchy]

Funny that this was brought up now after all this time. Kevin was telling me about this place a few months ago.

I went on a camping trip up north a couple weekends ago and decided to take the scenic route through Globe on the way home. When I was in Globe I spotted the shop and stopped to check it out. It was on a Sunday so nobody was home, but the place seemed to be pretty well kept up and there was a light on in the back corner inside the shop. It was right in the middle of a pretty good gully washer when I stopped by, so I didn't spend too much time outside of my truck. I didn't want to be too soggy for the rest of my drive home.

It was hard to see inside the shop, but I could see that there were still several old machines. There were definitely some old lathes and belt driven horizontal mills, and I think I saw the traversing head shaper too. I couldn't really see any line shafting, but it was pretty dark and hard to see, so it could have been there.

I believe the name of the shop was McGowen Machine Works, not Globe Machine Works. I tried to look it up online, but didn't find much. All I came up with was an obituary for one of the McGowen's, but it sounded like he spent his career working as an engineer elsewhere.

I would certainly be interested if anyone knows anything about the shop and it's current status.

-Tim

Edit- I type slow so I hadn't seen previous post yet. Glad to see the article

 

[lienjohn]

Ok, Herb brings a 16 year old thread back to life and JRR finds an article that most likely answers the question as to what became of the shop and the article is 6 days old.

McGowen Machine Works full of history – still viable today
Posted by: Aimee Staten July 19, 2017 in Business Leave a comment

This is quite a coincidence or I am missing something.

FWIW, I get fooled by the old threads coming back to life EVERY TIME.

John

 

[SouthBendModel34]

There's No Thread Like an Old Thread

Folks,

I see nothing whatsoever wrong with bumping up old threads with the exception of the obvious objection to profiteering mentioned by ThorneNewMexico in Post #3. Even that isn't so terrible if the responses add to "the knowledgebase" of the forum.

The very good thing about adding to old threads is that it keeps all the material on one topic in one thread.

BTW: Finding the pointer to that newspaper feature article about the McGowen Machine shop was SHEER LUCK. I did a search for "Globe Machine Works," the name given in the OP. It brought up a directory of machine shops in the Globe AZ area. After that, it did not take long to connect the OP description to McGowen.

FWIW: Globe AZ has about 7,500 citizens.

John Ruth

 

[inwoodcutter]

I just love the fact that a machine shop which could have very easily ended up as scrap iron is still preserved. Makes you wonder how many of those that got away somehow survive.

 

[Milland]

Ok, Herb brings a 16 year old thread back to life and JRR finds an article that most likely answers the question as to what became of the shop and the article is 6 days old.

McGowen Machine Works full of history – still viable today
Posted by: Aimee Staten July 19, 2017 in Business Leave a comment

This is quite a coincidence or I am missing something.

John

Amazing coincidence for sure, but damn, that's an understatement - I'd go with incredible!

 

[Kurtis Fordice]

Is anyone close to go check it out and get some pics?

 

[hendeyman]

kpotter:

Back in the seventies, I use to go to Eagar to visit my grandparents and work on some land I had in the area. The trip from Tucson was via Globe with a stop for fuel and occasionally a stop at McGowen's shop. Sometime ago, I mentioned in one of the threads about McCabe lathes that I had seen very few McCabes in Arizona and had only to the best of my knowledge seen only one All in One model and that was at the McGowen shop in Globe, Arizona. This may have been the large lathe that you referred to. At the time, it was not operational because of several damaged gears that needed to be replaced. From what the owner said, I got the impression that he had ordered the gears from an outside source instead of making them in house, lack of heat treat facilities may have been the reason for out sourcing the gears. If you could post the pictures you took, it would be a help in refreshing my memory as to the type of McCabe that was in the shop. I do remember the traverse head shaper, single ram, as shown in the picture. At the time I was looking for a double ram with a longer bed, which I have since gotten a good lead on. Nice to see that the old shop is still there.

Hendeyman

 

[Steve's Hobby]

Globe and the whole area are full of History, mining in particular, anyone who has not been there, I encourge to go if you like History of the early West like I do. A Valuable guide is
Railroads of Arizona, Volume 3, by Daivd Myrick, the author, while focusing on Railroads, outlines the Mining History and its a great read and a guide, it can be found used on the usual Web Sites: like Abe books...

Hoping to see the machine shop saved and nothing against Bars of any type, but please not this one...

 

[ClappedOutBport]

I'm guessing we still don't have any pictures of this place? I'd certainly like to just get an idea of what that shaper looked like. Something like this?



[Courtesty of lathes.co.uk]

 

[EarlF]

Glad for the bump

 

[hendeyman]

ClappedOutBport:

The Shaper is clearly shown as the lead picture in the 2017 article. It is a typical Single Ram, Double Table, Short Bed
Traveling Head model, possibly 15 x 30. I don't remember if it was equipped with a circular turning attachment, but most
of the smaller machines were not.

Hendeyman

 

[dalmatiangirl61]

Anyone know what happened to this shop? Is it still operating or did it become a biker bar? Been a long time since I rolled thru Globe/Miami.

 

[ClappedOutBport]

ClappedOutBport:

The Shaper is clearly shown as the lead picture in the 2017 article. It is a typical Single Ram, Double Table, Short Bed
Traveling Head model, possibly 15 x 30. I don't remember if it was equipped with a circular turning attachment, but most
of the smaller machines were not.

Hendeyman

Well I'm embarrassed to say that it was so unrecognizable I scrolled right past it! Thanks.

What was the main benefit to a double table shaper? Long parts that needed cutting cross ways? Setting up a part in one table and cutting one on the other?

 

[mike knuckey]

It has been a while, but do you still have the videos you took at the shop?

 

[mike knuckey]