Company History: Established 1868

Thomas R. Morgan	William H. Morgan	William H. Morgan, Jr.

Any history of the Morgan Engineering Company must of necessity be closely bound to the life story of its founder, Thomas Rees Morgan, Sr., who was born March 31, 1834, at Penydarren, Merthyr Tydvil, Glamorgan, Wales. He was the youngest of a family of six children, and at the age of eight he commenced work in a coal mine, first as door boy and later as teamster with his father who was a coal mining contractor.
 
At the age of 11, he met with a serious accident in the mine which very nearly cost him his life and resulted in the loss of his left leg below the knee. After his recovery, he was sent to school for three years. At 14 he left school and served an apprenticeship of five years in the machine shop of the Penydarren Iron Works in his native town. Later, he worked in the largest industrial plant in Wales, the Dowlais Iron Works, and was in charge of the machine shops in Llanelly, Wales for five years.
 
During these years the desire to leave the old country and emigrate to America, which he greatly admired, became increasingly strong, and early in 1865 he left a good position, contrary to the advice of his friends, set sail for the United States with his wife and three children. He arrived in New York on April 15, the day that President Lincoln died, and his first view of the new country was that of many of the buildings draped in heavy black mourning.
 
He first settled in Pittston, Pa., where he secured employment in the shops of the Lackawanna & Bloomington Railroad. It was in Pittston that the fourth child, William Henry Morgan was born. But the family soon moved to Johnstown, Pa., where Mr. Morgan was employed by the Cambria Iron Company. Later, the family moved to Pittsburgh, where he was successfully superintendent of the Allegheny Valley Railroad shops, the Atlas Iron Works, and Smith & Porter's machine shops.
 
It was in 1868 that the foundation for the present company was laid, when Thomas R. Morgan decided to engage in business for himself in the manufacture of Steam Hammers and other special machinery. He carried on for three years in Pittsburgh, but faced with the lack of adequate space and facilities, moved the business to Alliance in August 1871 under the name of Marchand & Morgan.
 
Expands Products
 
"The Hammer Shop" as it was then known, soon expanded its products to include punching and shearing machines, steam, hydraulic, electric and pneumatic equipment, gun and mortar carriages; electric overhead traveling cranes; locomotive, gantry, jib and derrick cranes; hydraulic forging presses; bending flanging and riveting machines; and other miscellaneous types of heavy equipment.
 
In 1877, Mr. Marchand retired and a new partnership was formed with Silas J. Williams coming into the firm. The company was renamed Morgan-Williams & Company. This arrangement lasted until 1884 when Mr. Williams sold out his interest and the business was first named the Morgan Engineering Company, later to be incorporated in 1900.
 
Notable Features
 
During the lifetime of Thomas R. Morgan, Sr., many notable milestones in the history of the company occurred, among them, the first Overhead Travelling Crane ever built in the United States in 1878; the first Electric Overhead Travelling Crane built in the world, 1881; the first Electric Overhead Cranes ever installed in a steel mill, thirteen 10-ton capacity cranes for the Homestead Steel Works 1893; a 25-ton double trolley overhead crane exhibited at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, for which the Morgan Engineering Company was awarded a special Diploma of Achievement.
 
Also during this period the long association between the company and the United States Ordnance Department was begun, the most noteworthy achievement being the construction of the Gordon 10 in. Disappearing Gun Carriage in 1894. This immense gun mount designed for coast defense weighed more than three hundred tons, and at the time was the largest gun mount ever built in the United States.
 
During the Spanish-American War, many additional gun carriages were built, and a company of Pennsylvania National Guard was assigned by the War Department to guard the plant.
 
Thomas R. Morgan died on September 6, 1897, and with him passed the first era of the company. During the father's lifetime, John R. Morgan, the eldest son, had been chief engineer; Thomas R. Morgan, Jr., sales manager; William Henry Morgan, vice president, and Henry Heer, general superintendent.
 
On their father's death, the two eldest sons sold their interest in the company to the remaining members of the family, and a new set of officers took charge. William Henry Morgan became president; Willis H. Ramsey, vice president and secretary and treasurer; Thomas D. Russell, assistant treasurer; A. Fred Morris, sales manager; William H. Purcell, general manager and Clarence L. Taylor, chief engineer. Mr. Purcell left the employ of the company late in 1901 to become head of the then new Alliance Machine Company, in which capacity he later made his mark as one of the industrial leaders of Alliance.
 
Grew With Steel
 
During the first and second decades of the 20th century, the progress of the company paralleled the growth of the steel industry in this country and equipment was furnished for nearly all of the leading steel mills.
 
On America's entrance into World War I, nearly the entire production of the plant was taken over by the Ordnance Department of the United States Army. Many field mounts in addition to railway mounts, and self-propelled guns were turned out by the company. Due to the urgency of war orders, The Canton Steel Foundry Company was purchased, and a large Ordnance Department built on the south side of East Summit Street. Production from these increased facilities was only well under way when the Central Powers collapsed in November 1918 and World War I came to an end.
 
Due to over-expansion during World War I, serious financial difficulties were encountered during the mid-twenties. The necessary retrenchment was made and The Canton Steel Foundry sold in 1927.
 
Colonel William Henry Morgan, who had headed the company since 1897, passed away March 29, 1928. In his place was elected the vice president and sales manager, A. Fred Morris, whose past service had extended over many years.
 
The business boom of the late 20's enabled the company to pay off the accumulated obligations, and by 1930, a Creditors Committee which had been appointed late in 1926 was discharged.
 
During the 1930's, operations of the company were seriously impaired, as a result of the Great Depression and the very slow recovery in heavy industry, but due to a program of economy there was no repetition of the events which occurred ten years before. The Ordnance plant which had been built in 1918 was scrapped in 1937.
 
With the beginning of the rearmament program late in 1940, the wheels of heavy industry began for the first time in 10 years to turn as something near normal capacity.
 
The attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and the formal entry of the United States into World War II, brought an unprecedented demand for increased steel production. As a result, unlike the Spanish-American War or World War I, the full capacity of the plant was required to turn out its regular products in order to increase as quickly as possible the steel making capacity of the United States.
 
War Efforts
 
The extraordinary war effort of the Morgan Engineering Company was quickly recognized. On April 2, 1942, the company was awarded the coveted Navy "E" flag, the first company in Stark County to be so honored.
 
At the close of hostilities in August 1945, five additional stars had been added to the Navy "E" flag. The company had made a prodigious effort and had turned out far more than at any time in its history.
 
In 1946, A. Fred Morris retired as president to become chairman of the Board, and his place was taken by the vice president, William H. Morgan, Jr., the grandson of the founder.
 
In 1948, Mr. Morris passed on after an unprecedented service record of 60 years with the company. He was the last of the younger executives who had taken up the reins of management in 1897, and with his passing a second era had come to a close.
 
Present Times
 
From this point on, up until 1964, a third era came into being which initiated a major equipment and plant modernization program for The Morgan Engineering Company and which program was planned to be commensurate with the new fabricating and machining techniques that had been developed, and along with new materials available and especially including electronic data processing equipment. This new phase also demanded new thinking in design and material selections for our products in order to keep abreast of our competition and aim to reduce manufacturing costs. Several million dollars were expended during this era on new facilities and machine tools.
 
Another factor having a profound effect on our operations during this period has been the need for developing new products and redesigning the old to meet the advent of a revolutionary new process of making steel, steel that was of improved quality and made at greater speed. In short this was the era of the basic oxygen furnance development for making steel as opposed to the existing conventional open hearth process. This period witnessed ever-increasing capabilities for cranes and related products. Ladle cranes increased, 500 to 650 ton capacities were built. Stripper cranes up to 400 ton capacity, and with all categories of cranes requiring a greater degree of sophistication in operating performances necessitated new and improved control concepts.
 
In March of 1964, Mr. W.H. Morgan, Jr., President, elected to retire. He was the last of the original founder's family to play an active role in the operation of The Morgan Engineering Company. The Morgan family at that time disposed of their holdings in the company to The United Industrial Syndicate, Inc., a holding company based in New York, and thus we again embarked on another new era. The United Industrial Syndicate, Inc., retained most of the key executives of The Morgan Engineering Company at the time, with Mr. T.J. Fullerton becoming President, Mr., D.W. Reed, Jr., Comptroller, and Mr. J.F. Ameser, Secretary-Treasurer. Mr. Fullerton served as President until March 1967 when he left the company, and Mr. D.W. Reed, Jr., became President.
 
United Industrial Syndicate expressed a keen desire to enhance Morgan Engineering Company's influence and activity in the heavy duty, industrial, material handling field. They demonstrated their confidence in Morgan by continuing the policy of improving our manufacturing facilities by providing added funds for new machine tools and processes, including an electronic computer, thus keeping us abreast of new ideas as they develop in manufacturing equipment and materials and, more importantly, improving and broadening our product base. To do this effectively required the establishment of a positive, long-range research and development program, and several independent task forces were created, as needed, to effectively serve this vital idea. This of course entailed the appropriating of necessary funds by the parent corporation for this to work. As a result we have successfully promoted, in design and marketing, several new concepts in overhead crane design which in some areas could be considered a radical departure from previous practices, such as our torsion girder design and single girder design cranes.
 
Further a new design and development was completed of a 500 ton shipboard crane to coincide with a new concept in ocean freight transport which came into being. Further, new designs of stripper cranes were developed with capabilities for such cranes going up from 400 to 600 ton. Also new designs were developed on forging manipulators of 25 and 40 ton capabilities, new all welded designs of 200 ton capacity ingot mould cars, and 250 ton hot metal handling ladles to name a few products.
 
An effective standardization program was also instituted to help reduce costs in engineering and manufacturing by simplifying the design and selection of materials for drive components and to standardize other repetitive parts used on a crane.
 
In 1975, the company was sold to AMCA International. The business downturn of the early 1980's impacted the company resulting in downsizing of operations. In 1984 AMCA closed the manufacturing facility in Alliance and sold the buildings and equipment. The Alliance office was downsized to an engineering and sales office with the actual manufacturing of the large crane projects being subcontracted to another AMCA owned facility in Canada. The project management was maintained through the Morgan office. The office and 14,000 square foot warehouse was leased by Morgan from the new owner of the facility.
 
In 1987 Morgan was purchased from AMCA International by a sole shareholder. In 1988 the office building and 14,000 square foot warehouse were repurchased. At this time Morgan increased manufacturing by building spare parts and locally subcontracting and built transfer cars and other mill equipment while still manufacturing the larger equipment in the Canadian facility. In 1991 it was decided to increase the manufacturing facility in the Alliance plant and leased back 50,000 square foot of the original Morgan facility. Since that time we have manufactured a 600 ton Power House Crane, a 150 ton Ladle Crane and several other cranes and two 400 ton Ladles which are the largest built in North America. In January of 1994 the original 330,000 square foot Morgan facility was repurchased by us and we are continuing to increase our manufacturing base to utilize more of the facility. With the repurchase of the Morgan Facility we have committed to building our business centered in the City of Alliance. We have a good work force or hire new people as the need arises and as future business is secured. With the large amount of subcontracting that has been done since 1984 we have a 15 year track record with local machine shops and other facilities and a very strong subcontract network to assist us while we grow.
 
Morgan is well known throughout the world as the leading designer of overhead electric traveling cranes. Morgan has thousands of patents and designs and has manufactured over 8,000 cranes. In addition to custom overhead cranes for aluminum companies, steel mills, electric power plants, refused facilities, container handling, and general industry use, Morgan also manufactures other equipment such as transfer cars, ladles, scrap buckets, presses, manipulators, and most large fabrications.
 
We have a sophisticated engineering staff suited for custom work including stress and fatigue analysis and draw upon proven designs using the most modern technology. We have the capability to design and manufacture most types of heavy equipment and the financial strength and experience to stand behind our products known for quality for over 139 years.

In 2002 Morgan Engineering purchased Alliance Machine Co., creating Morgan/Alliance, further enhancing our production capabilities.
 
The year 2007, after nearly 140 years, we are still doing business at the "same old stand." With an experienced and loyal working force the company faces the future with confidence.

History in Pictures

	15 Tons Overhead Travelling Crane Designed and Built for T.M. Nagle Erie, PA, 1890 View larger image
	2- 25 Tons, Double Trolley, Overhead Travelling Cranes Designed and Built for The Long Island R.R. Co. NY, 1889 View larger image