Toledo's History has been significantly shaped by the presence of various industries. This exhibit features some of the most notable companies that shaped the industrial landscape of Toledo. Click on the essay title to read the historical background, or view the exhibit that feature unique period photographs. Interested visitors are welcome to contribute with images and stories.
Essay by Timothy Messer-Kruse
Toledo has a long and continuous automotive history. For Toledo, the year 2000 will not only mark the great roll-over of the millennial odometer, but will also be the centennial year of automobile production in the city. In the fall of 1900, the American Bicycle Company built a steam truck in a factory on Central Avenue. From that time with only a few interruptions, notably in the panic 1907 and the Great Depression, automobiles and trucks have been built upon this same site to the present day.
Toledo's Gendron Wheel Company
Toledo's Attic Essay
"Toledo, thanks to Peter Gendron, has become prominent throughout the world for its development of the manufacture of metal wheels and for the quantity and quality of its output of that class of products. Mr. Gendron, came to the city at the age of twenty-one and found employment as a pattern maker in the Toledo Novelty Works, then conducted by Russell & Thayer..."
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Essay by Timothy Messer-Kruse
Among the most recognized brand names of the twentieth century is Toledo Scale, a company whose headquarters and primary design and production facilities were located in its namesake. One of the greatest achievements of the Toledo's Attic Committee (especially its point man for collections, Ernest W. Weaver, Jr.) during 1998 was securing possession of the corporate papers of Toledo Scale from the Mettler Toledo Corporation. Along with many cases of documents, ledgers, photographs, and other archival materials, the Toledo Scale Collection includes a series of paintings by Georges LaChance of the skilled artisans of the company. In this exhibit, Toledo's Attic Virtual Museum presents a few of the items from this vast collection.
Faces of Steel: People and History of the Acklin Stamping Plant
By Benjamin Grillot, April 2000
The story of Acklin Stamping, and really the story of Toledo's metal working industry, begins in 1911. The world was a radically different place in those days. Brand Whitlock, as Toledo's mayor, led a rapidly growing city of 170,000 people. Both, the city and the nation were on the cusp of incredible technological change. In 1911, horses still dominated transportation and the speed limit was a mere 8 miles per hour. However this was all about to change in the next several years with the arrival of affordable automobiles, brought to the market by a number of companies including Toledo's own Willys-Overland Motor Company.
