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Buckeye Manufacturing Company

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Defunct American motor vehicle manufacturer
Buckeye Manufacturing Company
circa 1915
Company typeAutomobile Manufacturing
IndustryAutomotive
Founded1884
FounderJohn William Lambert
Defunct1917
HeadquartersAnderson, Indiana, United States
Area servedUnited States
ProductsVehicles
Automotive parts
Divisions1801-1809 Columbus Ave

The Buckeye Manufacturing Company was a company founded in 1884 by John William Lambert and his family members originally to manufacture horse drawn buggy parts in Union City, Ohio. The enterprise started with $2,000 and six men and some helper boys. The company got involved in making tools and one early horseless carriage automobile.

Lambert and his family members in 1893 moved the Buckeye Manufacturing Company to Anderson, Indiana. The company at that time brought in a horse drawn buggy harness pole firm owned by one of the Lambert family members. In time the Buckeye Manufacturing Company founded automobile related subsidiary companies under it led by Lambert, some of which were the Union Automobile Company, the Lambert Automobile Company, and the Lambert Gas and Gasoline Engine Company.

History

The Buckeye Manufacturing Company started in 1884 as the firm of Lambert Brothers & Company in Ohio City, Ohio. The family-run enterprise started business with the sum of two thousand dollars. The company of six men and a few young boys initially started to manufacture buggy neck-yokes and other horse-drawn carriage parts. J. H. Osborne joined the company within a couple of years and the company name was changed to J. H. Osborne and Company. They added a line of hardware specialties to the business including some tools and a hand-operated drill. By 1890 Mr Osborne dropped out of the company and the name changed to the Buckeye Manufacturing Company, the nicknamesake of the state of Ohio. A single Buckeye gasoline buggy automobile was built by the company in 1890, and offered for sale in 1891, though none were produced.

The Buckeye Manufacturing Company factory burned in 1891. There was a loss of $15,000 (equivalent to $508,667 in 2023) in buildings and materials of which $12,000 (equivalent to $406,933 in 2023) was covered by insurance. They constructed new buildings to replace the ones lost in the fire. The stationary Buckeye engine designed and invented by John William Lambert was later patented. The company started manufacturing these stationary engines for commercial use. The company was then reorganized and turned into a corporation with stock of $100,000 (equivalent to $3,521,538 in 2023). Lambert became the company's president with his parents taking key positions. His father became the vice president and his mother become the secretary and treasurer.

The Lamberts then in 1893 founded the Lambert Gas and Gasoline Engine Company when they moved the Buckeye Manufacturing Company to Anderson, Indiana. They then brought in the Pioneer Pole and Shaft Company which manufactured poles for buggy harnesses, a company that was directed by George Albert Lambert, brother to John William Lambert. The complete enterprise occupied the building where the Ward–Stillson Company was once located at Third and Sycamore streets on the west side of city in the Evalyn industrial park. It was south of the New York Central Railroad (also known as the Big Four tracks) and across from Peterson Lumber Company. The building address was 1801-1809 Columbus Ave.

Buckeye Manufacturing Company in Anderson, Indiana (1910)

The Buckeye Manufacturing Company factory expanded in 1903 with the purchase of 5 acres (20,000 m) nearby in the 1800 block of Columbus Ave. A contract for the iron frame steel work of a new building was signed with general contractors and a factory constructed. It had the latest up to date equipment and electric cranes. The plant had 300,000 square feet (28,000 m) of floor space and employed about 400 people. The cost of the new building was $150,000 (equivalent to $5,086,667 in 2023). The company at first made gasoline engines. The factory manufactured about 6,000 gasoline engines to 1905. Those engines after that were made by the Lambert Gas and Gasoline Engine Company, a subsidiary of the Buckeye Manufacturing Company located at the same place in Anderson.

The Buckeye Manufacturing Company from 1902 to 1905 made pressed steel parts for automobiles that Lambert designed. Those body parts were for automobiles under the Union brand. The items were then shipped from Anderson to Union City for final assembly. In 1905 that automobile was redesigned and then manufactured in Anderson. The redesigned automobile bore Lambert's name and began selling in June and by 1906 they had a wide range of models.

The Buckeye Manufacturing Company made about 2,000 Lambert cars and trucks per year between 1906 and 1910. By 1910 the company had over 1,000 employees and they were producing 3,000 cars and trucks per year until 1916 when production dropped to 1,000 vehicles per year. Between 1905 and 1916 the Anderson factory manufactured automobiles, trucks, fire engines, and steel-wheeled agricultural farm tractors. The factory building (589 feet long by 60 feet wide) was known as the longest building in the world devoted to the manufacture of automobiles.

Gasoline street car

The company started making in 1910 a fleet of gasoline engine trolley railway cars that were for an interurban railway in Pennsylvania. They were to replace electric powered trolleys and each car had a capacity of thirty-five passengers. The trolley came equipped with their friction gear-less transmission of the same type used on their automobiles and trucks. That form of transmission allowed the trolleys to be run at the same speed in either direction. The company made an addition to their automobile factory in Anderson to make space to manufacture these mass transit street cars.

Demise

The Buckeye Manufacturing Company manufactured Lambert vehicles until 1917. The company factory then was converted to a national defense facility and made military shells, caisson wheels, and fire engines. After World War I in 1919 the Buckeye Manufacturing Company was renamed Lambert Incorporated and made car parts only and no longer made complete automobiles. The company relocated to Dayton, Ohio and Lambert's birthplace of Ansonia, Ohio.

See also

References

  1. ^ Howard P. Freeman (May 2, 1966). "Anderson One Time Leader in Auto Production". Anderson Daily Bulletin. Anderson, Indiana. p. 42.
  2. "Anderson's Automobile Age". Archived from the original on 2010-03-25. Retrieved 2008-12-19.
  3. "Auto's 75th Anniversary of special interest Here". Anderson Daily Bulletin. Anderson, Indiana. January 12, 1971. p. 4 – via Newspapers.com Open access icon.
  4. "Buckeye Manufacturing Company". Memim Encyclopedia. 2022. Retrieved January 29, 2022.
  5. Forkner 1914, p. 148.
  6. US Department of Interior, National Park Service, Historic American Engineering Record; HAER IN35, Buckeye Manufacturing Company, historians Donald Sackheim and Robert Rosenberg
  7. "Several auto factories in the city before the Remy brothers". The Herald Bulletin. Anderson, Indiana. September 13, 2013. p. 4.
  8. "Anderson's Industries are fairly humming". The Indianapolis Journal. Indianapolis, Indiana. December 21, 1903. p. 2.
  9. Lucendo 2019, p. 1863.
  10. ^ Lucendo 2019, p. 1864.
  11. "Man about Town". Anderson Daily Bulletin. Anderson, Indiana. January 20, 1959. p. 4.
  12. "Adopt Gasoline Street Car". The Times. Munster, Indiana. May 5, 1910. p. 3 – via Newspapers.com Open access icon.
  13. "Lambert House". Anderson Public Library. December 18, 2020. Retrieved January 30, 2022.

Sources

Further reading

  • Dolnar, Hugh; The Lambert, 1906 Line of Automobiles; Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal, volume 10, issue 7 (pages=225–229), 1906
  • Kimes, Beverly Rae (1996), Standard Catalog American Cars, 1805–1942, ISBN 0-87341-428-4
  • Naldrett,Alan (2016), Lost Car Companies of Detroit, ISBN 9781625856494
  • Nawale,Suraj Dattatray (2014), Multispeed Right Angle Friction Gear, International Journal of Engineering and Technical Research (IJETR) (pages=184–191), volume 2, issue 9, ISSN 2321-0869
  • Netterville, J. J., Centennial History of Madison County, IN, Anderson, Indiana, Historian's Association, 1925
  • The Horseless Age: The Automobile Trade Magazine, The Horseless Age Company, 1902
  • Bailey, L. Scott, Historic Discovery: 1891 Lambert, Claim for America's First Car, "Antique Automobile" magazine, V4, #5, Oct–Nov 1960
  • David Burgess Wise, The New Illustrated Encyclopedia of Automobiles ISBN 0-7858-1106-0
  • Dittlinger, Esther et al., Anderson: A Pictorial History, G. Bradley Publishing, 1990, ISBN 0-943963-16-8
  • Georgano, G.N., The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile, Taylor & Francis, 2000, ISBN 1-57958-293-1
  • Huffman, Wallace Spencer, Indiana's Place in Automobile History in Indiana History Bulletin, vol 44, no. 2, Feb. 1967; Indianapolis, Indiana Historical Bureau
  • Huhti, Thomas, The Great Indiana Touring Book: 20 Spectacular Auto Tours, Big Earth Publishing, 2002, ISBN 1-931599-09-2
  • James, Wanda, Driving from Japan, McFarland, 2005, ISBN 0-7864-1734-X
  • Kimes, Beverly Rae, Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1805–1942, Krause Publications, 1996, ISBN 0-87341-428-4
  • Madden, W. C., Haynes-Apperson and America's First Practical Automobile: A History, McFarland, 2003, ISBN 0-7864-1397-2
  • Scharchburg, Richard P., Carriages Without Horses: J. Frank Duryea and the Birth of the American Automobile Industry, SAE, 1993, ISBN 1-56091-380-0

External links

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