Towns and Nature: Hamilton, OH: 1882 Hooven, Owens, Rentschler, and Company

Wednesday, November 1, 2023

Hamilton, OH: 1882 Hooven, Owens, Rentschler, and Company

(Satellite, Corliss engine works. I haven't determined the location of the Niles Tool Works)

The Steamship Historical Society of America posted
This black and white photograph is of women sub-contractors posing in front of Engine No. 500 in Hamilton, Ohio for the firm of Hooven, Owens, Rentschler, and Company that manufactured steam and diesel engines. The photo is dated October 26, 1943. General Machinery Corporation Collection, SSHSA Archives.
Bob Noiseux: Liberty ship engine. I was an engineer running one just like it halfway around the world.
Richard Sterne: That's what it is. General Machinery's Hooven, Owen, Rentschler division was the lead designer and a major builder of the Liberty ship engine.
Rob Michael: Triple expansion steam engine for a Liberty Ship? Those engines were obsolete by 1942 but the Liberty Ships used them.
Andrew VanLuenen: Rob Michael obsolete but we had guys that knew how to run them. Plus they didn’t need high pressure boilers like the turbines. We had to build them fast and if they had a one trip service life they did what they needed to do!
Scott Elkington: The Submariners of WWII called their Opposed Piston diesel engines HORs. They were pretty terrible and were all eventually replaced by Fairbanks Morse OP engines.
Dee Murphy: The SS Jeremiah O'Brien and the SS John Brown use these triple expansion steam engines. You can even take Steam School on the SS John brown and start this steam engine up. https://www.eventbrite.com/.../ss-john-w-brown-steam...

alchetron
HOR was created by merger in 1882. A predecessor firm, Owens, Ebert & Dyer, was founded by Jog E. Owens in 1845. "By World War I, the Hooven-Owens-Rentschler Company operated the largest exclusive Corliss Engine plant in the country, employing nearly 800 men. In 1928 the company merged with the Niles Tool Works to form the General Machinery Corporation. However, it continued to make diesel engines under the H.O.R. brand....During World War II, all submarine H.O.R. engines were replaced by early 1943, usually with General Motors Cleveland Division engines or Fairbanks-Morse Model 38 engines. In 1947, General Machinery Corporation merged with Lima Locomotive Works to form Lima-Hamilton Corporation, which, in turn, merged in 1950 with Baldwin Locomotive Works to form the Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corporation. BLH, Hamilton Div., moved to the Eddystone Pa. plant of BLH in 1959. BLH went out of business around 1966."
Hooven-Owens-Rentschler Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA

garystockbridge617

The railroad tracks and the far buildings on the right are now gone.

Street View, Jul 2013

CincinnatiLibrary, cropped

You can still see the "MILTON" of "HAMILTON CORLISS ENGINE WORKS" on the side of the building.

Street View, Jul 2019

They produced Corliss engines varying in size from 35hp to 2000hp. [LaneLibraries]

mycompanies, License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA)

An HOR combination steam engine is preserved in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. It is one of 12 units (this one was built and installed in 1916) that were made for Mr. Ford for his Highland Park assembly plant where he produced the Model T from 1908 until its production demise in 1927. This engine was removed from the Highland Park facility and placed in storage after the Ford Motor Company took up permanent residence at the giant River Rouge facilities to produce the Model A. Mr. Ford donated the steam engine to his Edison Institute as the cornerstone display in 1929. The Edison Institute later was renamed the Henry Ford Museum and is known today as "The Henry Ford". [alchetron]

I don't know if this is an interior shot of the HOR plant or Ford's Highland Park plant.