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ALLIS-CHALMERS
The Early
Years Allis-
Chalmers goes back to 1847 when the Decker and Seville Reliance works was
formed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The company was formed by Charles Decker and
James Seville and manufactured castings, sawing machinery, grist mills, and
other heavy equipment. The Panic of 1857 brought the company down and was sold
on a sheriff's sale on February 7, 1861. Company now purchased
by Edward P. Allis & company in 1891 was growing quickly. In 1869 the
company decided to expand into steam powered pumps including the largest
centrifugal pump in America. By 1889, there would be 1100 employees on the
company's payroll. In 1901, Allis-Chalmers was formed by merging the Edward P.
Allis Co., Fraser and Chalmers Company and Gates Iron Works. Expansion Wanting to
diversify the firm, Allis-Chalmers built their first farm tractor in 1914. The
tractor business grew rapidly and in 1928 a line of crawler tractors has
started. The tractor business grew fast and in 1928 a line of crawler tractors
has started. And when Allis-Chalmers decided to focus on a small and medium
sized farmer tractors, they came up with new designs that turned out to be best
sales. Allis-Chalmers would be recognized by a distinct orange color on their
tractors. The company's Tractor division would start to pioneer in the farm
tractor advancements that included a first tractor with pneumatic tire, first
power-adjustable rims, and first turbocharged tractor. The WC tractor was first
built in 1933 as a prototype tractor. Soon to follow was the Model B tractor,
then the Model C in 1940, the Model CA in 1950, the Model WD in 1948 and the
Allis-Chalmers WD45 in 1953. Aging &
Decline Allis-Chalmers
have started opening new factories outside U.S and Canada. The formation of
this had struggle keeping Allis-Chalmers an international company, even though
new factories were opened in other countries the profits we're still low. The
company was getting heavy financial losses by the late 1960's. Production was
coming from different plants around the country but these plants we're outdated
and not at all efficient and we're in need of modernization. Starting in 1971
the company has changed its name to Allis-Chalmers Corporation. In 1974 the
company would join forces with Fiat of Italy. They worked together to crate and
sell construction machinery, but as Allis-Chalmers held small part in the
contract 35% it was terminated. Investing
into products that failed have cost Allis with huge losses. To make up for the
losses, company was forced to sell-off its divisions, even the farm equipment
line that always was a good source of income was beginning to founder.
Over the new few years, the company has
continued selling their branches and even tried to rent empty factory space.
Allis-Chalmers was forced to shut down the west part and now has only kept its
corporate locations. A company that had once had 20,000 employees now had 100
in 1989. On January 30, 1999, has officially marked the end of the company.
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