Top 40 Erie Industries in 1950

As I was coming home last night on East 12th Street, a couple of things caught my eye. The setting sun looked like a blazing ball of fire in the sky. The three smokestacks were a sad reminder of the old Hammermill Paper Company on East Lake Road. I turned north on Downing Avenue and captured this scene just before the sun disappeared below the horizon 

The stacks also got me thinking about what a great manufacturing town Erie, Pennsylvania was. Coincidentally, I found a list of the principal industries of Erie in a 1950 publication. Thousands of skilled workers were employed in these shops. Just a handful of these businesses remain.* See if you can name them.

Alsco, Inc. made aluminum windows and doors
American Sterilizer Company
Henry Althof & Sons specialized in iron and iron works
American Hollow Boring Co. made forgings
Bliley Electric Company
Bucyrus-Erie made steam shovels
Burke Electric Company made motors
Bury Compressor Company made compressors
Cascade Foundry Company made castings
Continental Rubber Works made rubber goods
Erie Brewing Company made beer
Erie City Iron Works
Erie Concrete and Steel Company fabricated steel
Erie Forge Company made machinery
Erie Foundry Company made machinery
Erie Malleable Iron Works
Erie Meter System made meters for gas station pumps
Erie Plastics Company made radio parts
Erie Resistor Corp. made radio parts
General Electric Co. makes locomotives
Griffin Mfg. Company made hardware
Hammermill Paper Company made quality writing paper
Hays Mfg. Company made brass  products
Jarecki Mfg. Company made valves and fittings
Johnson Metal Products made metal items
Kollman Mfg. Company made sewer and drain cleaners
Lord Mfg. Co. made rubber mountings
Lovell Mfg. Co. made wringer washers and mouse traps
Metric Metal Works made gas meters
National Erie Corporation made machinery
Nosco Plastics manufactured items out of plastic
Nubone Company made items for undergarments
Odin Stove Company made stoves
Pelham Electric Manufacturing
Penn Brass and Copper
Perma-Lite Displays made neon tubing for signs
Protane Corporation made items for gas
Reed Manufacturing Company
Skinner Engine Company
Standard Stoker Inc.
Talon Inc. made zippers
U. S. Printing & Lithograph Company made circus posters
Wayne Brewing Company made beer
Weil-McLain Company made radiators
J. A. Zurn Company

*some companies merged with others or operate today under a different name

Enjoy more facts and photos of Erie, PA at: Old Time Erie

Hamot Hospital Donations in 1920

Photo from Hamot Hospital Association 1921 Annual Report.

Here are a few donations to Hamot Hospital during 1920. Do you see any familiar names on this list? 

Mrs. Clyde- 2 baskets of apples; Mrs. Fred Jarecki- 4 bushels of potatoes
Mrs. Charles Clark- 3 quarts of cream
Miss Ella F. Law- 1 pair of metal protective mitts; A. P. Burton & Sons- cut flowers
Mrs. R. K. Jarecki- magazines; Robert Brogden- cut flowers

Mrs. N. J. Alward- magazines; Baur Floral Company- cut flowers
Charles G. Offerle- cut flowers;Mrs. F. W. Bacon- magazines
Dr. R. S. Minerd- magazines; Mrs. J. F. VanCleve- 17 books for the Children's ward
Mrs. Hugh Brown- 10 dozen handkerchiefs, 5 romper suits, 3 waists, 3 union suits, 
        1 rocking horse and toys
Miss C. Scheller- magazines; Mrs. Henry Schaffner- magazines
John Jones- magazines; Mrs. Abraham Schaffner- 28 pound turkey
Mrs. Fred Jarecki- 3 dozen oranges, 2 dozen bananas, California grapes
Lake Shore Ice Cream- 6 quarts family treat ice cream
Dr. John Motier- cut flowers; Holland Mfg. Co.- 2 cutter wheels
Mrs. Louisa Dewitt- $500; Mr. E. R. Behrend- $50 for nurses' Christmas
Mr. E. R. Behrend- $1,749.30 for microscope and $1,500 for laboratory
Mrs. T. R. Palmer- Christmast center pieces
F. D. Schultz & Company- 25 pounds assorted candies
Mrs. Matthew Griswold, Sr.- half box of oranges
Mrs. M. H. Taylor- 1 turkey, 2 pounds cranberries, 3 bunches of celery
Mrs. Clyde B. Leasure- 1 toy ark, magazines, 1 large toy rabbit, 1 large Indian doll
Mrs. Fred Jarecki- 6 cans corn, 6 cans peas, 6 cans tomatoes, 4 pounds of grapes,
      2 pounds of figs, 2 dozen oranges, 2 chickens, 6 pounds of apples

(This is just a sampling of items donated to Hamot in 1920.)

Here's a photo of Hamot Hospital from 1929: http://oldtimeerie.blogspot.com/2013/01/hamot-hospital-and-public-dock-in-1929.html

Enjoy more historic facts and photos of Erie, PA at: oldtimeerie.blogspot.com

Continental Rubber Works 19th and Liberty Street Erie PA

Continental Rubber Works, 19th and Liberty St., Erie PA. From 50th anniversary booklet. The building along West 20th Street still stands, as does the building on the left, 2000 Liberty St., which is now Triangle Tech.

Continental Rubber Works started operation on November 26, 1903 in the same factory where the Black Manufacturing Company made the Tribune bicycle on 19th and Liberty Street. Click here to read more about Black Mfg. Co. 

Continental Rubber was chartered in August 1903 in Pennsylvania. Theron R. Palmer, founder of the company, was President and General Manager. Alex Jarecki was Vice President, Charles S. Coleman was Treasurer and Charles Jarecki served as Secretary. (Alex Jarecki was also the superintendent of the Jarecki Manufacturing Co., which was co-founded by Charles Jarecki. Learn more about Jarecki's here. 

"Mr. Palmer had found an ideal plant location at 19th and Liberty Streets. The new plant, formerly occupied by the Tribune Bicycle Works, consisted of four large brick and stone buildings with a floor space of approximately 115,000 square feet...Within four years, all the original buildings were occupied by new machinery and other production facilities to meet the ever-growing demand for Continental tires, tubes, hose and other rubber products...

From the beginning, Continental was organized to produce bicycle tires and tubes, industrial hose and various calendared and molded rubber products. It was the bicycle tire, however, that was to provide the vehicle of rapid company progress in those early years...Within a few short years, Continental bicycle tires under the trade name Vitalic were accepted as the standard of quality not only in the United States but throughout the world...

When the nation mobilized for war in 1917, the company was equipped and staffed to take an important part in the fight to 'save democracy.' Tires, tubes, gas masks and scores of other rubber products for the armed forces were turned out as Continental's greatly augmented staff worked 'round the clock, seven days a week...

By 1914, it became apparent that still greater plant capacity was needed to keep pace with increasing sales. In that year, a three-story brick building known as Number 6 was erected. In 1923, an addition was made to Number 6 which extended it a full block from Plum to Liberty Streets. The new building almost doubled the manufacturing area." -Fifty Years of Service booklet.

The booklet failed to mention that workers went on strike April 2, 1941. "Officials of the Continental Rubber Works' Erie, PA, and of United Rubber Workers (CIO) union were asked to meet a mediation board panel here Friday to try and end the five week old tie up of the plant, which was making synthetic rubber for airplane engines. The union asked wage increases, a union shop, and vacations with pay, for the 840 plant employees."-Ellensburg Daily Record, Wednesday, May 7, 1941.

"The Continental Rubber Works...was reopened today with 100 men returning to their jobs. A seven cents an hour wage increase was negotiated at a Defense Mediation Board hearing. Of the 700 workers who went on strike, asking a 10 cents an hour increase, more than 300 are employed on other jobs, it was said." -Pittsburgh Press, May 14, 1941,

When the anniversary booklet was printed in 1953, John Beecher and Rose Pongratz had worked for Continental Rubber Works for 45 to 50 years each.

Pasquale DiMarco, Lena Hartline, F. R. McCarty and Fred Wolf had worked for the company for 40 to 45 years each.

People who worked at Continental Rubber Works for 35 to 40 years included: Joseph H. Bohrer, John Brutcher, James Ford, Joseph Hagmann, Dr. Paul H. Henkel, John Kosobucki, H. Edward Mehl, Clacy McNary, Anton Nowak, Delmar Shanks and Rolla Sturgeon.

Erie Forge & Steel bought Continental Rubber Works in 1961, and then sold Continental Rubber to Continental Copper & Steel Industries, Inc in 1963. The Liberty Street plant closed many years ago.

Five hundred workers at Continental Rubber were on strike from July 1 to September 13, 1963.

A rental hall called the Continental Ballroom operated in the eighties and nineties in a portion of the old Rubber Works on the northeast corner of West 20th and Plum Streets.

Enjoy more historical facts and photos of Erie, Pennsylvania at: Old Time Erie