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losses by the late 1960's. Production was coming from different plants around the country but these plants we're outdated and not at all efficient and we're in need of modernization.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.