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Some pressing business matters got in the way of a big celebration to mark the 100th anniversary of the Wagner Iron Works.
So on Thursday, the firm’s members shook hands all around and then plunged back into meeting the demands of what will be a record year. Wagner Iron expects that sales of its hydraulic lifts for tractors at 8,000 units will double the 1949 volume, which isn’t a bad start for a second century of operations. The firm believes it is the nation’s largest producer of such equipment.
“A few months ago we had big plans for working up a centennial brochure,” officials of the firm explained. “We thought that we’d trace our history as best we could from the old records and then wind up with a comparison of the benefits of the free enterprise system and economic slavery. But now, we haven’t got time to breathe.”
Expand Plant Here
Wagner Iron’s major product is a tubular hydraulic lift apparatus which can be fitted on the front of standard tractors. For some time the firm has been making equipment for Ford and Ferguson tractors, and last week it began production of lifts designed to fit Deere tractors.
Three months ago the company began construction of a plant addition to permit assembly lines to be laid out in continuous rows for speedier and more economic production.
Already some of the 200 workers are at their cutting, bending and welding tasks on the floor of the 100 by 150 foot addition. The roof is on and so long as the weather is fair, they don’t even need the concrete block walls where are going up.
“We can only go so far in mechanizing our production, “a spokesman explained. “So in that respect we are linked to the old firm. We even make a few special steel railings similar to those made by the old firm.”
Need for Lower Costs
He credited the great increase in demand for Wagner Iron’s lifts to the need for low cost lifting and pushing apparatus in smaller industries and on farms. The hydraulic lifts are for a variety of forks and blades, an earth plow, a snow plow, materials buckets and crane lifts.
Small organizations need mechanization as much as the big firms, and also need multipurpose equipment that can be linked to something as versatile as a tractor, he added.
In part from old records, in part from a diary kept by the founder, Julius G. Wagner, the firm has traced its history from 1850. Julius Wagner’s firm acted as consulting and contracting engineers. It manufactured structural steel items, ornamental iron works and miscellaneous iron, bronze and wire products. Many of its products went into bridges, homes and public buildings all over the nation.
At one time, J.G Wagner Iron Works operated at what was 518 N. Market St., opposite the present city hall, in a venerable building which is still sanding.
Increases Its Line
As the firm grew, it became the distributor for building specialty products such as steel sash, rolling doors, fences and joists. Heading the firm in this period was the late Adolph F. Wagner, son of the founder and father of the present president, Adolph A. Wagner.
In 1944, Wagner founded an affiliate firm, the Wagner Engineering and Service Co. The same year Arnold Werner left his post as vice-president of the Wisconsin Bridge & Iron Co. to join Wagner as vice-president and a director. Adolph A. Wagner became president the same year.
The next year Wagner purchased the warborn shipyard of Froeming Brothers, Inc., including 10 acres of land and a number of buildings. Wagner Iron has since become an accredited repair firm for naval vessels operating on the Great Lakes because of its ship building and repairing facilities on the Kinnickinnic river. In World War II about 50 million dollars in navy seagoing tugs and small vessels were built, as many as one a week going off the ways.
In 1948 Wagner dismantled the USS Wolverine, a small aircraft carrier used by the navy on the lakes for training navy aircraft pilots.
There was a period in the Wagner Iron history when the firm was not operating. The founder sold the firm to the American Bridge Co., which eventually closed the Milwaukee plant. But J. G. Wagner started up all over again under his own name.
Another Wagner firm, the York-Wagner Corp., is producing air conditioning equipment, but the volume does not rank in importance with Wagner Iron’s hydraulic lifts. Also being produced by Wagner Iron is a sealing machine for cartons, many of which are sold to the brewing industry. |