History of W & S?

Hi,I never worked for W&S, but am a big fan of the old time machine builders, especially lathe builders. I start my engineering career in the south western part of the state with The Monarch Machine Tool Company back in '87, and worked there till '97. That plant was hugh, and I learn that as machine tool factories go, the Sidney plant was about as big as one would find. The posts from you Swasy folks sure makes me believe that W&S was an order of magatude larger.

Question - has a history of Warner & Swasey ever been published? And if one hasn't been written, then some alumni should get busy while there are still enough old timers left to relate all the neat stories that can make a great company come alive.

Thanks for all the great posts!

Warner & Swasey published a 50th aniversary history in 1930. There were other smaller publications written around the 40's to the 60's. Several former Swasey empoyees have a copy of the 50th anniversary book. I do too. The 100th anniversary was in 1980 when Bendix had just bought the company. There was a recent book published just a couple of years ago by a Cleveland businessman and machine shop owner Peter Rebar of Hy-Level Industries called "...The Destruction of the Warner & Swasey Company" which describes what happened to W/S especially after the 1970's. A few hundred copies were published, some on CD.

PS the Cleveland Turning Machine Division (Carnegie Avenue) (dating back to around 1890) set of buildings were just under 1 million square feet, several buildings connected by tunnels under the street.

Thanks, Bill, for the infomation.