Clark Equipment Company
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Clark Equipment Company was an American designer, manufacturer, and seller of industrial and construction machinery and equipment.


History

Clark's predecessor was the George R. Rich Manufacturing Company, founded in 1903 in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
,
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
by executives of the
Illinois Steel Company The Illinois Steel Company was an American steel producer with five plants in Illinois and Wisconsin. Founded through a consolidation in 1889, Illinois Steel grew to become the largest steel producer in the United States. In 1898, several other s ...
. The company moved to
Buchanan, Michigan Buchanan is a city in Berrien County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 4,456 at the 2010 census. The city is located at the southeast corner of Buchanan Township, about 5 miles (8 km) west of Niles. History The community ...
in 1904 when that city's chamber of commerce advertised a financially sound deal with respect to industrial rent and power supply. Eugene B. Clark, an Illinois Steel employee at the time, determined that the metallurgy of Rich Manufacturing's principal product, a railroad rail
drill A drill is a tool used for making round holes or driving fasteners. It is fitted with a bit, either a drill or driverchuck. Hand-operated types are dramatically decreasing in popularity and cordless battery-powered ones proliferating due to ...
named the Celfor Drill, was faulty, and also found fault with both the management and basic operations, which he ultimately corrected after the two parties established him becoming an equal partner. In 1916 he merged Rich Manufacturing, which by then had been renamed Celfor Tool, and Buchanan Electric Steel Company, an offshoot of the former, and formed Clark Equipment Company, named after Clark. In 1919 a division called Clark Tructractor Company was formed. This still exists as
Clark Material Handling Company Clark Material Handling Company (CMHC), stylized as CLARK, is an American manufacturer of forklift trucks based in Lexington, Kentucky. The company has a production plant in Changwon, South Korea. Clark currently (2018) offers some 304 different ...
. From the 1920s until the 1960s, Clark made strategic acquisitions that opened access to new markets. In 1953 it purchased the Michigan Power Shovel Co and developed a new division dedicated to large scale
earthmoving equipment Heavy equipment or heavy machinery refers to Heavy-duty vehicle, heavy-duty vehicles specially designed to execute construction tasks, most frequently involving Earthworks (engineering), earthwork operations or other large construction tasks. ...
. Further notable acquisitions included Hancock Manufacturing Company from Lubbock, Texas, in 1966, which manufactured
scraper Scrape, scraper or scraping may refer to: Biology and medicine * Abrasion (medical), a type of injury * Scraper (biology), grazer-scraper, a water animal that feeds on stones and other substrates by grazing algae, microorganism and other matter ...
bowls. Since Clark was one of the participants in the development of the
PCC streetcar The PCC (Presidents' Conference Committee) is a streetcar (tram) design that was first built in the United States in the 1930s. The design proved successful in its native country, and after World War II it was licensed for use elsewhere in the ...
in the 1930s, they produced 80% of the bogies for this type of trolleycar. In 1935–1936, Clark built a one-of-a-kind aluminum body trolley for a PCC streetcar that ran in Brooklyn and Queens, New York, until 1956. This trolley is preserved at the
Trolley Museum of New York The Trolley Museum of New York, a non-profit organization, is located at 89 East Strand Street, Kingston, New York. The museum is open to the public on a seasonal schedule, but volunteer activities relating to the preservation of historic tran ...
and is listed on the New York State Register of Historic Places. In 1954, Clark Equipment opened a plant in
Valinhos Valinhos () is a municipality (''município'') in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. It is the birthplace of Adoniran Barbosa. Valinhos is famous for its purple fig, the theme of its annual Fig Fest. It is part of the Metropolitan Region of Campina ...
, Brazil, to produce gears and truck transmissions for the South American Market. That plant also produces lifts and construct machinery. The Brazilian plant still was leader for mechanical transmissions until 1995 when was sold to Eaton Corporation. It continued to grow as a company, but in the 1960s and again in the 1980s, many were sold. In 1982 the company sold its wheel loader and dozer division to
Volvo The Volvo Group ( sv, Volvokoncernen; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distributio ...
. In 1995, Clark was acquired by
Ingersoll Rand Ingersoll Rand is an American multinational company that provides flow creation and industrial products. The company was formed in February 2020 through the spinoff of the industrial segment of Ingersoll-Randplc (now known as Trane Technologies) ...
. Also in 1995, Ingersoll Rand sold Clark Equipment's mechanical test laboratory which still operates a
Clark Testing
today in Buchanan, Mi. In 1996, Ingersoll Rand donated two tons of Clark archives to the
Berrien County Historical Association The Berrien County Historical Association (BCHA) is a historical association located in Berrien Springs, Michigan. Established in 1968 as the Berrien County Historical Commission, the organization partners with Berrien County, Michigan to operate t ...
, and the Berrien County 1839 Courthouse Museum is now the Clark archives repository. In 2007, Ingersoll Rand sold Clark Equipment Company to Doosan International of South Korea. The sale included the Construction Equipment Group of Ingersoll Rand. The Construction Equipment Group included Bobcat, Portable Air Compressors, Generators, Light Towers, and Construction Equipment Attachments. In July 2021, Doosan Infracore was acquired by
Hyundai Heavy Industries Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. (HHI; ) is the world's largest shipbuilding company and a major heavy equipment manufacturer. Its headquarters are in Ulsan, South Korea. History HHI was founded in 1972 by Chung Ju-yung as a division of the ...
, which paid approximately $722.45 million for a 30%, controlling stake in the company. Doosan Infracore will become a subsidiary of the newly created Hyundai Genuine group.


References


Bibliography

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Further reading

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External links

* ''The World of Clark'' (promotional film). Produced by Schulze MacLaren Ltd
Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4
!-- user JoZZZXXX --> {{commons category, Clark vehicles Defunct manufacturing companies based in Chicago