The Enterprise Foundry Company was incorporated in 1908. On 28 November 1940 the company name was changed to Enterprise Engine & Foundry Company to reflect the changed nature of the business. [1] The original foundry was established in 1886. [2] [3]
The company continued to make large diesel engines into the late 1940s. [4] There are a few known Enterprise engines remaining. [5]
In 1886, Martens and two business partners, James William Heaney and A. Anderson, developed a new business supplying industrial equipment castings. Their primary focus was on gold mining machinery, consisting mainly of compression cylinder castings for large engines. After the notorious 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, the Enterprise Engine and Machinery Company played a significant role in the rebuilding of the city. Their recovery activities provided Martens and his partners additional opportunities to stimulate the growth of and the momentum to expand their business.
In 1915, the company acquired a crucible steel foundry. Shortly after this purchase, Martens and his partners established a brass and bronze foundry in Los Angeles. In 1917, the company constructed an electric arc furnace for use in its steel foundry. This was the only foundry of its type on the west coast, and it ultimately replaced the old crucible steel process. In the same year, a new engine department was created, and a team of engineers was hired to design and manufacture various types of heavy-duty engines fuelled by gas and distillates.
The Iron Age in January 1925 estimated 35 foundries to be operating in the San Francisco Bay area, employing 1500 men. Enterprise foundry employed 300 in three plants. One at 19th and Alabama, one at Fremont and Folsom ( 37°47′17″N122°23′37″W / 37.78813°N 122.39363°W , see also United Engineering Co.), and one in South San Francisco. [6]
A December 1928 survey by the Iron Trade Review found 1 open hearth furnace and 2 1-ton electric furnaces (for forging ingots) in the South San Francisco Works. [7] The Enterprise Foundry Co. was in that survey among the smallest of the West Coast steel producers.
The first engines produced by the team were single-cylinder, rated at eight horsepower. The following engines were twin-cylinder, rated at 20 horsepower (15 kW). In a short time, designs were developed for engine models capable of producing up to 250 horsepower (190 kW).
Stemming from the success of their gas and distillate fuel engines, the engineers set out to create a line of diesel engines. At this time, the cost of operating a diesel engine was approximately 20 cents per hour, compared to the $2.75 for gasoline engines. This economical Enterprise Diesel engine became very popular in a number of industries which had previously utilized gas powered engines.
In 1924, The Enterprise Engine and Machinery Company merged with the Western Machinery Company of Los Angeles. This merger made the new organization the premier manufacturer of internal combustion engines on the west coast. [8] In an effort to diversify the range of products, the company began selling oil burners and food processing equipments.
During World War II, Enterprise built hundreds of diesel engines for the United States Navy and Maritime Commission for tugs, harbor craft, small vessels, and auxiliary electric generators on larger ships. In addition, many Enterprise engines were sold to drive electric power generators in cities and towns across America.
During that time the company operated three plants: in Richmond, South San Francisco and San Francisco [9]
In early 1941 the capacity of the San Francisco plant at 18th between Alabama and Florida streets was tripled with the addition of a new 19,500sqft machine shop. 37°45′42″N122°24′42″W / 37.761725°N 122.411655°W [10]
Some photographs of the facilities and of a 6 cylinder diesel engine: [24]
In the mid-1950s, after many decades of growth, Enterprise Engine & Foundry Company merged with Adel Precision Products Company of Burbank, part of the General Metals Corporation. This gave rise to a substantial increase of the company's engineering and production capacity and its testing and research capability. The Enterprise had the necessary resources allowing them to manufacture diesel engines ranging from 73 horsepower (54 kW) to 7,700 horsepower (5,700 kW). These are now being utilized in almost every conceivable type of prime-mover application from powering boats and pumping oil to generate electricity. From its modest beginnings in 1886, Enterprise had become a mammoth division of a major American corporation.
Between 1960 and 1990, Enterprise Engine & Foundry Company changed its ownership numerous times. These transitional decades were accompanied by a major downturn in domestic demand for large power engines. The strong US dollar and rising interest rates hurt Enterprise's export sales. In the late 1960s, Enterprise Engine & Foundry Company was purchased by Delaval Turbine. Then in the 1970s, Delaval Turbine was acquired by Transamerica Corporation. In 1987, Transamerica elected to spin off the Delaval operations to its shareholders in the form of a dividend. The name was changed to IMO Delaval. In 1988, IMO Delaval sold the Enterprise after market services to Cooper Industries, which in turn, spun off its oil and gas related holdings to Cameron Corporation, previously known as Cooper Cameron Corporation. Cooper Machinery Services is the current original equipment manufacturer for Enterprise engines.
Union Iron Works, located in San Francisco, California, on the southeast waterfront, was a central business within the large industrial zone of Potrero Point, for four decades at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries.
The Vulcan Foundry Limited was an English locomotive builder sited at Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire.
The EMC E2 was an American passenger-train diesel locomotive which as a single unit developed 1,800 horsepower (1,300 kW), from two (2) 900 horsepower (670 kW) prime movers. These locomotives were typically operated as a unit set or ; where the three unit lashup developed 5400 horsepower. This was almost the ideal horsepower required for the tonnage of a 15 - 18 car passenger train, operated over the ruling grades of virtually all of the mileage between major American cities. The units were of the A1A-A1A wheel arrangement, and manufactured by Electro-Motive Corporation (EMC), later Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD) of La Grange, Illinois.
Fageol Motors was a United States manufacturer of buses, trucks and farm tractors.
Type C1 was a designation for cargo ships built for the United States Maritime Commission before and during World War II. Total production was 493 ships built from 1940 to 1945. The first C1 types were the smallest of the three original Maritime Commission designs, meant for shorter routes where high speed and capacity were less important. Only a handful were delivered prior to Pearl Harbor. But many C1-A and C1-B ships were already in the works and were delivered during 1942. Many were converted to military purposes including troop transports during the war.
The Consolidated Steel Corporation was an American steel and shipbuilding business. Formed on 18 December 1928, the company built ships during World War II in two main locations: Wilmington, California and Orange, Texas. It was created by the merger of Llewellyn Iron Works, Baker Iron Works and Union Iron Works, all of Los Angeles. The company entered the shipbuilding business in 1939. In 1948, now a pioneer producer of large-diameter pipelines, Consolidated Steel was renamed Consolidated Western Steel and acquired by U.S. Steel and operated as a wholly-owned subsidiary.
USS Algorab (AKA-8) was laid down as Mormacwren, one of the earliest Maritime Commission-type C2 ships, on 10 August 1938 by the Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., Chester, Pennsylvania as hull 177 for Moore-McCormack. Mormacwren was acquired by the United States Navy 6 June 1941, commissioned 15 June 1941 as USS Algorab (AK-25) and was redesignated an attack transport on 1 February 1943 with the hull number chanted to AKA-8. Algorab decommissioned on 3 December 1945 and was delivered to the Maritime Commission on 30 June 1946 for disposal, purchased by Wallem & Co. on 4 April 1947 for commercial service.
USS Mizar (AF-12) was the United Fruit Company fruit, mail and passenger liner Quirigua that served as a United States Navy Mizar-class stores ship in World War II.
The Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation was an American corporation which built escort carriers, destroyers, cargo ships and auxiliaries for the United States Navy and merchant marine during World War II in two yards in Puget Sound, Washington. It was the largest producer of destroyers (45) on the West Coast and the largest producer of escort carriers of various classes (56) of any United States yard active during World War II.
Willamette Iron Works was a general foundry and machine business established in 1865 in Portland, Oregon, originally specializing in the manufacture of steamboat boilers and engines. In 1904, the company changed its name to Willamette Iron and Steel Works, under which name it operated continually until its close in 1990.
The Santa Fe Railroad tugboats were used by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to barge rail cars across the San Francisco Bay for much of the 20th century, as there is no direct rail link to the San Francisco peninsula. In the post World War II period, a fleet of three tugs moved the barges: the Paul P. Hastings, the Edward J. Engel, and the John R. Hayden. After cross-bay float service had ended and the tugs had been sold, the Hastings sank off Point Arena, California in 1992, in water too deep to raise. The Engel sank off Alameda, California in 2007 and was raised and scrapped in the winter of 2013-14. The Hayden remains afloat and in service in Oregon.
Luna is a historic tugboat normally berthed in Boston Harbor, Massachusetts. Luna was designed in 1930 by John G. Alden and built by M.M. Davis and Bethlehem Steel. She is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a U.S. National Historic Landmark. In 1985, the Luna was designated as a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission.
Lightship No. 114, later U.S. Coast Guard WAL 536, that served as lightship Fire Island (NY), Examination Vessel, Diamond Shoal (NC), 1st District relief vessel, Pollock Rip (MA) and Portland (ME). After decommissioning in 1971, in 1975 the lightship became a historic ship at the State Pier in New Bedford, Massachusetts. She received little maintenance, and eventually sank at her moorings in 2006 and was sold for scrap the next year.
The Seattle Construction and Drydock Company was a shipbuilding company based in Seattle, Washington. Between 1911 and 1918, it produced a substantial number of ships for both commercial and military uses. In the beginning of the 20th century, until its significance was diluted by the emergence of a number of shipyards during the World War I shipbuilding boom, it was the largest of its kind in Seattle and one of the few significant ship yards along the West Coast of the United States, second only to the Union Iron Works in San Francisco.
General Engineering & Dry Dock Company was a shipbuilding and ship repair company in Alameda, California that was active from the 1920s through the 1940s. The company built ships for the Southern Pacific Railroad and the United States Coast Guard in the late 1920s and early 1930s and took part in the World War II shipbuilding boom, making diesel-propelled steel hulled auxiliaries for the United States Navy, primarily oceangoing minesweepers.
The Cleveland Diesel Engine Division of General Motors (GM) was a leading research, design and production facility of diesel engines from the 1930s to the 1960s that was based in Cleveland, Ohio. The Cleveland Diesel Engine Division designed several 2 stroke diesel engines for submarines, tugboats, destroyer escorts, Patapsco-class gasoline tankers and other marine applications. Emergency generator sets were also built around the Cleveland Diesel and were installed in many US warships. The division was created in 1938 from the GM-owned Winton Engine Corporation and was folded into the GM Electro-Motive Division in 1962. The engines continue in use today on older tugs.
The Type V ship is a United States Maritime Commission (MARCOM) designation for World War II tugboats. Type V was used in World War II, Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Type V ships were used to move ships and barges. Type V tugboats were made of either steel or wood hulls. There were four types of tugboats ordered for World War II. The largest type V design was the sea worthy 186-foot (57 m) long steel hull, V4-M-A1. The V4-M-A1 design was used by a number of manufacturers; a total of 49 were built. A smaller steel hull tugboat was the 94-foot (29 m) V2-ME-A1; 26 were built. The largest wooden hull was the 148-foot (45 m) V3-S-AH2, of which 14 were built. The smaller wooden hull was the 58-foot (18 m) V2-M-AL1, which 35 were built. Most V2-M-AL1 tugboats were sent to the United Kingdom for the war efforts under the lend-lease act. The Type V tugs served across the globe during World War II including: Pacific War, European theatre, and in the United States. SS Farallon, and other Type V tugs, were used to help built Normandy ports, including Mulberry harbour, on D-Day, 6 June 1944, and made nine round trips to Normandy to deliver Phoenix breakwaters.
MS Cape Flattery was a United States Maritime Commission type C1-B cargo ship built in 1940–41 by the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding, Tacoma, Washington, for the commission to be assigned to the American Mail Line for transpacific service. After the United States entry into the war the ship was operated by the War Shipping Administration (WSA) through American Mail as agents. The ship, after about a year of operation, became a troop transport for the remainder of the war.
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