The land is now vacant. A satellite image is below. It was founded in 1868, named "Kewanee Boiler Company" in 1892, and closed in 2002. [
kewanee-history] The owner of the company at the time of the closure, Burnham, created a plant in Indiana to build authentic OEM replacement parts. [
OemBoilerParts] I noticed that this is another company that has joined the exodus out of Illinois.
(Update:
Garrett Fuller's Kewanee Boilers)
The seventh photo
posted by Mike J Lally with the comment: "Old boiler factory being torn down in kewanee Illinois."
Nick Stabler Mike J Lally - The old foundry and pattern shop were the first buildings to go about 30 years ago. Dad and I rummages around and found some really cool old foundry patters, some for WW2 munitions. Thousands of other went to the landfill. “The Boiler Shop” employed a couple thousand guys at its peak.
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[It looks like this could have made a great "event space."] |
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John Sarff commented on Mike's post
Here's a photo of the Boiler Shop from the air. |
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StarCourier
A student in Boonville, Mo., found this American Standard Kewanee boiler in the basement of his high school and sent a photo of it to us when he learned we're always looking for another "boiler sighting." |
The other photos that Mike posted.
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Clay Coyne
posted five photos with the comment: "
One of the few remaining structures of Kewanee Boiler Company.
Est.1892, although this location was born in the year 1900 where it would flourish until fizzling out in 2002.This company once employed 1,000+ workers."
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I worked in the office when I was young and it was still Kewanee Boiler. I'm sad to see the vandalization of the elegant office complex. At one time, it had a botanical garden in the center of the right two-story building. As you came in those doors, to the left was the office of the owner/president. The commercial side of the business was on the second floor of this building. The engineering and development side of the business was to the left. We parked across the train tracks and each day walked over them into the building. At that time, the grounds on both sides of the track were landscaped and kept beautiful. There were spurs off this main RR track where the boilers could be loaded onto flatbed cars. We always went to the windows as a trainload of boilers, in all their new paint, would head out of the yard. I keep hoping someone will buy this building and turn it into something wonderful but those hopes have little chance at this point. Thanks for your pictures and info.
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