History
Richard Teller Crane
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RT Crane company resolution Jly4, 1855- “I resolve to conduct my business in the strictest honesty and fairness; to avoid all deception and trickery; to deal fairly with both customers and competitors; to be liberal and just toward employees and to put my whole mind upon the business.”
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Expansion & Diversification
Within one year of their first big order, the company moved to expand operations and diversify product lines. Building a three-story structure with upgraded facilities to allowe for production of engine parts for the railroad industry and manufacturing of steam boilers, referred to as "steam warming".
The onset of the Civil War (1861-65), the company became a major government supplier of fittings for saddlery, brass fittings, plates, knobs, spurs, and wagon equipment.
In 1866, the first catalog printed, which contained products as diverse as fire hydrants, ventilating fans, machine tools, water pumps, bung bushings for beer barrels, and steam engines. The advent of the Bessemer smelting process for iron enabled R.T. Crane to expand into low cost steel and further development of diverse and durable products.
1867 saw the company’s entry into the elevator business, when it designed an steam engine with a safety valve to control elevator speeds moving heavy loads. Over the next 30 years, Crane Co. provided 95 percent of the hoists used in U.S. blast furnaces. By1872, passenger elevators were added to the product line until it sold its elevator division in 1895 to a joint venture that eventually became the Otis Elevator Company.
The Great Chicago Fire (1871)
The Crane Co. manufacturing facility had avoided the Chicago fire of 1871 that had destroyed 1/3 of the city including the only water works facility. Faced with no water for its 300,000 inhabitants, R.T. Crane proposed to install temporarily its largest steam pumps to supply river water to the mains and ultimately saving the city from further perils.
In the year prior to the fire, R.T. Crane employed 160. In the year following the fire, the workforce expanded to 700, producing over $1 million worth of products.
The effect of the Great Chicago Fire not only required a city to rebuild but woke-up the rapidly growing nation to the extreme importance of modern and effective fire protection systems. Cities established construction standards requiring all new building above a certain height have built-in fire protection; namely sprinkler systems connected to abundant water supplies. Crane Co. through its ability to continually invent and develop improved pumps systems along with its other related products, became a critical and major supplier to build safer cities and taller buildings
Steam Plants for Electricity
Thomas Edison invented the first long lasting light bulb in 1879. By the early 1880’s he had developed transformers which allowed electricity to travel over wires for a short distance. For many decades prior to large turbine power plants, individual steam plants were the primary producer of electricity and were generally installed at place of use; next to factories, large buildings wealthy homes etc. Demand for Crane Co.’s steam plants and parts grew rapidly in both quantity and size. The company’s power plant catalogue alone issued in 1906 contained 397 pages of related products.
Employee Welfare
R.T. Crane from the earliest days as an employer, believed to be successful he must treat all his employees honorably and fairly. Uncommon practices of an eight-hour work shift, a five-cent lunch program, access to rest rooms with hot showers, free medical care for workers and their families attracted good and loyal workers.
Upon his death, R.T. Crane added $1 million to the company pension fund and $1 million to create a fund in support deserving widows and their children. Beyond the factory, R.T. Crane believed that charity should help the poor and established many school programs to enable life success for children of Chicago.
Building A Nation
Crane Co. both benefited and contributed to America’s coming of age in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries. Demand for innovative quality products to modernize factories, build better railroads and bridges, taller safer buildings with electricity, central heating and elevators were fulfilled by Crane Co’s metal works, water pumps, pipes, valves, fittings, plumbing fixture and steam systems for power & heating. Its “branch house” sales and distribution model accelerated delivery of new products to market and greatly reduced delivery delays of critical construction materials and finished products.
The Next 100 years
When R.T. Crane died on January 8, 1912, his company employed more than 10,000 and produced over16,000 separate products. It was his desire to pass the company reins on to his sons Charles R. Crane and R.T. Crane Jr. In a letter with his will, R.T. Crane wrote “It is my hope, that they will continue the work I have started.” And to keep a firm grasp on the family’s far flung and thriving industrial empire- “the grandest one ever built up by any person”.
R.T Crane Jr. ran Crane Co, as his father had hoped until his death in 1931. With no suitable family member to assume company reins, the presidency of Crane Co. for the first time, passed to a non-family member.
In 1936, Crane Co. became a publicly traded company on the NY Stock Exchange. Fortune magazine, in July 1936 wrote -“You can’t run a railroad or build a dam, operate a paper mill or lay a sewer, dig an oil well or heat a hospital, or launch a battleship or even take a shower without using one of the more than 40,000-odd products that are made by Crane Co.”
Today, Crane Co. is a diversified manufacturer of engineered industrial products, serving niche markets in fluid handling, aerospace, recreational vehicles and trucks, controls, automated merchandising, and the construction industry. Crane's wholesale distribution business provides the building products markets and industrial customers with millwork, windows, doors and related products, plumbing supplies, valves and piping, and fittings. From its inception in 1855 as a crude bell and brass foundry run singlehandedly by its founder, Richard Teller Crane, the company grew into an S&P 500 firm with international subsidiaries totalling more than 11,000 employees that generate more than $3 billion of sales in fields ranging from heating to wastewater treatment to aerospace to vending machines. Its products can be found on the Golden Gate Bridge, Gemini, Apollo and Space Shuttle programs
Within one year of their first big order, the company moved to expand operations and diversify product lines. Building a three-story structure with upgraded facilities to allowe for production of engine parts for the railroad industry and manufacturing of steam boilers, referred to as "steam warming".
The onset of the Civil War (1861-65), the company became a major government supplier of fittings for saddlery, brass fittings, plates, knobs, spurs, and wagon equipment.
In 1866, the first catalog printed, which contained products as diverse as fire hydrants, ventilating fans, machine tools, water pumps, bung bushings for beer barrels, and steam engines. The advent of the Bessemer smelting process for iron enabled R.T. Crane to expand into low cost steel and further development of diverse and durable products.
1867 saw the company’s entry into the elevator business, when it designed an steam engine with a safety valve to control elevator speeds moving heavy loads. Over the next 30 years, Crane Co. provided 95 percent of the hoists used in U.S. blast furnaces. By1872, passenger elevators were added to the product line until it sold its elevator division in 1895 to a joint venture that eventually became the Otis Elevator Company.
The Great Chicago Fire (1871)
The Crane Co. manufacturing facility had avoided the Chicago fire of 1871 that had destroyed 1/3 of the city including the only water works facility. Faced with no water for its 300,000 inhabitants, R.T. Crane proposed to install temporarily its largest steam pumps to supply river water to the mains and ultimately saving the city from further perils.
In the year prior to the fire, R.T. Crane employed 160. In the year following the fire, the workforce expanded to 700, producing over $1 million worth of products.
The effect of the Great Chicago Fire not only required a city to rebuild but woke-up the rapidly growing nation to the extreme importance of modern and effective fire protection systems. Cities established construction standards requiring all new building above a certain height have built-in fire protection; namely sprinkler systems connected to abundant water supplies. Crane Co. through its ability to continually invent and develop improved pumps systems along with its other related products, became a critical and major supplier to build safer cities and taller buildings
Steam Plants for Electricity
Thomas Edison invented the first long lasting light bulb in 1879. By the early 1880’s he had developed transformers which allowed electricity to travel over wires for a short distance. For many decades prior to large turbine power plants, individual steam plants were the primary producer of electricity and were generally installed at place of use; next to factories, large buildings wealthy homes etc. Demand for Crane Co.’s steam plants and parts grew rapidly in both quantity and size. The company’s power plant catalogue alone issued in 1906 contained 397 pages of related products.
Employee Welfare
R.T. Crane from the earliest days as an employer, believed to be successful he must treat all his employees honorably and fairly. Uncommon practices of an eight-hour work shift, a five-cent lunch program, access to rest rooms with hot showers, free medical care for workers and their families attracted good and loyal workers.
Upon his death, R.T. Crane added $1 million to the company pension fund and $1 million to create a fund in support deserving widows and their children. Beyond the factory, R.T. Crane believed that charity should help the poor and established many school programs to enable life success for children of Chicago.
Building A Nation
Crane Co. both benefited and contributed to America’s coming of age in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries. Demand for innovative quality products to modernize factories, build better railroads and bridges, taller safer buildings with electricity, central heating and elevators were fulfilled by Crane Co’s metal works, water pumps, pipes, valves, fittings, plumbing fixture and steam systems for power & heating. Its “branch house” sales and distribution model accelerated delivery of new products to market and greatly reduced delivery delays of critical construction materials and finished products.
The Next 100 years
When R.T. Crane died on January 8, 1912, his company employed more than 10,000 and produced over16,000 separate products. It was his desire to pass the company reins on to his sons Charles R. Crane and R.T. Crane Jr. In a letter with his will, R.T. Crane wrote “It is my hope, that they will continue the work I have started.” And to keep a firm grasp on the family’s far flung and thriving industrial empire- “the grandest one ever built up by any person”.
R.T Crane Jr. ran Crane Co, as his father had hoped until his death in 1931. With no suitable family member to assume company reins, the presidency of Crane Co. for the first time, passed to a non-family member.
In 1936, Crane Co. became a publicly traded company on the NY Stock Exchange. Fortune magazine, in July 1936 wrote -“You can’t run a railroad or build a dam, operate a paper mill or lay a sewer, dig an oil well or heat a hospital, or launch a battleship or even take a shower without using one of the more than 40,000-odd products that are made by Crane Co.”
Today, Crane Co. is a diversified manufacturer of engineered industrial products, serving niche markets in fluid handling, aerospace, recreational vehicles and trucks, controls, automated merchandising, and the construction industry. Crane's wholesale distribution business provides the building products markets and industrial customers with millwork, windows, doors and related products, plumbing supplies, valves and piping, and fittings. From its inception in 1855 as a crude bell and brass foundry run singlehandedly by its founder, Richard Teller Crane, the company grew into an S&P 500 firm with international subsidiaries totalling more than 11,000 employees that generate more than $3 billion of sales in fields ranging from heating to wastewater treatment to aerospace to vending machines. Its products can be found on the Golden Gate Bridge, Gemini, Apollo and Space Shuttle programs
- Source : The Autobiography of Richard Teller Crane 1832-1912, Published Privately 1927
- Source: Crane: 150 Years Together, https://www.scribd.com/document/267977863/Crane
- Source : https://www.craneco.com/about/history
- Source: International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 30. St. James Press, 2000.
- Source : USDI/NPS NRHP Crane Building Des Moines, Iowa, , Entered Aug 30, 2001
- Source : https://www.nfpa.org/About-NFPA/NFPA-overview/History-of-NFPA
Crane Co. Building of Memphis