Grant Locomotive Works in Cicero in 1893.

Glenn Miller posted
Grant Locomotive Works in Cicero in 1893. The company spent millions of dollars moving from Patterson, NJ but a strike shut them down forcing them into receivership and they closed down. They were only in the neighborhood for a few short years but the neighborhood still carries their name, Grant Works The company built 1,888 locomotives but only 24 were built in Cicero.

Glen Miller posted two photos with the comment:

Grant Locomotive Works in Cicero in 1893. The company spent millions of dollars moving from Paterson, NJ but a strike shut them down forcing them into receivership and they closed down. They were only in the neighborhood for a few short years but the neighborhood still carries their name, Grant Works. The company built 1,888 locomotives but only 24 were built in Cicero.

One of them, number 657 was built for Burlington & Missouri River number 329 (c/n 1812) renumbered to CB&Q 657 and classed K-2 in 1904, and retired in March 1943. The CB&Q Locomotive Assignment Sheet dated November 1, 1932 shows number 657 assigned to the Ottumwa Division. 

As it turned out, this was one of the last (if not the last) locomotive constructed by the Grant Locomotive Works.  

Although 55 locomotives were ordered by the CB&Q, only three were built (#'s B&MR 327, 328, 329, later, CB&Q 655, 656, 657) before the strike at the Works closed the plant.  Then the Works went into receivership and was purchased by the Siemens & Halske Electric Company.  The locomotive order was completed under the new ownership, but sold to other railroads.

Excerpt from "Chicago, the Marvelous City of the West" 1893

Grant Locomotive Works. — Located at the corner of Sixteenth street and Robinson ave. Take train at Grand Central depot, Fifth avenue and Harrison street, via the Chicago & Northern Pacific railroad. Capital, $800,000. Edward T. Jeffery, late general manager of the Illinois Central railroad, is president of the company, which has purchased the somewhat famous tract of land known as " Section 21, Cicero." Sixty acres in this tract, at the northwest corner of Sixteenth street and Robinson avenue, have been reserved as a site for the locomotive works. The capacity of the works will be about 250 locomotives per annum, and the entire plant will be completed within two years. Preliminary operations will begin this summer. The works will be the only locomotive manufacturing establishment west of Dunkirk, N. Y. and Pittsburg, Pa. The section is bounded upon three sides by Oak Park, Austin, Moreland, Morton Park and La Vergne, while upon the remaining side, the east, lies Chicago. The works will be a little over six miles from the Court-house. The land itself is owned by the Grant Land Association, a corporation organized in connection with the locomotive works company, and the title is vested with David B. Lyman and Edward T. Jeffery, trustees. The Wisconsin Central railroad runs along the north side and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy along the south side of the tract. Both roads will have depots at Forty-eighth street, and the company says that both will extend their tracks from the main line and enter the heart of the tract at Sixteenth street. The Twelfth street and Ogden avenue street car line is completed to within a short distance of the purchase. One feature of this huge project deserves special notice. It is the purpose of the gentlemen at "the back of this addition to make it one of the great manufacturing points of the vicinity. To aid in the accomplishment of this result a tract of sixty acres has been set apart for manufacturing enterprises. Only first-class establishments will be permitted to locate there. The great locomotive works are sure to be a sort of attraction for other and smaller enterprises, and beyond question this addition will be, in a comparatively short time, the rival of the leading manufacturing centers of the country. The character of the men and the large capital at their command is a guarantee of this fact. The new addition is located upon section 21, which has formed the basis of some interesting recent litigation. It is about thirty feet above Lake Michigan. The natural drainage is as good as one could wish. To give the reader an adequate idea of the immensity of the locomotive works, it is only necessary to state the dimensions of the different buildings. These are as follows : Machine shop, 110 by 370 feet; erecting shop, 80 by 285 feet; blacksmith shop, 80 by 250 feet: hammer shop, 80 by 125 feet; boiler shop, 100 by 250 feet; wood shop, 70 by 230 feet; paint shop, 70 by 170 feet; pattern shop, 60 by 130 feet; foundry, 80 by 260 feet; core-room, 50 by 60 feet; cupola-room, 60 by 80 feet; boiler-room, 50 by 70 feet; dynamo-room, 50 by 60 feet; office building, 45 by 130 feet. The total square feet amount to 195,260. With a mammoth manufacturing concern like this as its foundation, where is the chance to question the future of the enterprise? The importance of the Grant Locomotive Works will be thoroughly understood when the greatness of Chicago as a railway point is taken into consideration. Centering here and having their terminals in Chicago are 60,000 miles of railway tributary to these trunk lines and connecting with them are 35,000 miles more. This will closely identify with this great city nearly one hundred thousand miles of railway, and this stupendous mileage makes Chicago the greatest railway center in the world. The railway corporations having their terminals in Chicago own 12,000 locomotives.

 

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Joseph Obrien shared

Dom Palandri commented on Joseph's share

That was a million dollars in 1800s dollars. I wonder what that would be in 2016 dollars. I recognize Paterson, NJ, as a hotspot of early locomotive building. Rogers Locomotive Works was also there.

Original Chicago posted two photos with the comment:

Grant Locomotive Works in Cicero in 1893. The company spent millions of dollars moving from Patterson, NJ but a strike shut them down forcing them into receivership and they closed down. They were only in the neighborhood for a few short years but the neighborhood still carries their name, Grant Works. The company built 1,888 locomotives but only 24 were built in Cicero.

One of them, number 657 was built for Burlington & Missouri River number 329 (c/n 1812) renumbered to CB&Q 657 and classed K-2 in 1904, and retired in March 1943. The CB&Q Locomotive Assignment Sheet dated November 1, 1932 shows number 657 assigned to the Ottumwa Division. 

As it turned out, this was one of the last (if not the last) locomotive constructed by the Grant Locomotive Works.  

Although 55 locomotives were ordered by the CB&Q, only three were built (#'s B&MR 327, 328, 329, later, CB&Q 655, 656, 657) before the strike at the Works closed the plant.  Then the Works went into receivership and was purchased by the Siemens & Halske Electric Company.  The locomotive order was completed under the new ownership, but sold to other railroads.

Kelly Sedgwick shared

Paul Webb shared

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Chris Etheredge commented on Paul's share
My favorite locomotive in existence is CB&Q 637, they’re almost identical except 637 was built in Patterson, NJ.

From Railway Preservation News, I learned a fire provided the opportunity to move the business:

From this posting I found the comment:

> Does anybody know if the records of Grant> Locomotive Works still exist in some form> somewhere?
It seems unlikely; the firm moved from Patterson to Chicago and then went belly up back in 1894. Here's a bit from a Web site on Patterson industry:
"Meanwhile, in 1845, William Swinburne quit as superintendent of the Rogers works. His son-in-law, John Cooke, succeeded him. Swinburne became senior partner in Swinburne, Smith & Co., which in 1848 began building locos, its first one being the New York & ErieÂ’s No. 11. Three years later, the firm was reorganized as New Jersey Locomotive & Machine Co. (NJL&M). In 1867 it became the Grant Locomotive Works, operated by Oliver D. F. Grant and his son David B. Grant. Its masterpiece, the America, later Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific No. 109, won first prize, a gold medal, at the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1867. Thereafter, the Grant works placed a replica of this medal on the cab of every engine it built.
Seriously damaged by fire in 1887, the Grant Locomotive Works moved to Chicago in 1890 and shut down in 1894. While located in Paterson, it constructed more than 1850 engines."
Another thought: have you tried this book by Ferrell:
A Description of Locomotives Manufactured by the Grant Locomotive Works of Paterson N.J. Author: (Ferrell, Mallory Hope).. Published by Boulder CO Pruett Publishing Co. 1971.

The Old Neighborhood Berwyn Cicero Chicago History Page It says at the southwest corner of 12th & 48th Sts. (Cicero Ave. was known as 48th Ave. prior to 1913)

But that must have been the Grant Works residential neighborhood.

Chicago Tribune Oct. 24, 1902

Larry DeGangi commented on Glenn's posting:

Thanks, my history had a senior moment, but I know I worked at that site for 18 years, a fun job in my younger days.

EMD bought castings from National Castings when I worked there. 

The Tribune article led me to National Mallable Castings Co., which led me to National Castings in Cicero and Melrose Park. I found the address 1400 S Laramie Ave. in ChamberOfCommerce. A 1986 Toledo Blade article indicates the company was still going strong in the 1980s. But now Cicero is a vacant lot. I wonder if it closed when EMD quit making locomotives in the US. (They moved all locomotive assembly to their London, Ontario, plant.) Melrose Park has buildings, but they don't look like heavy industry and the industrial spur is abandoned.

So, as you would probably expect by now, it is time to fire up the way-back machine and go back to 1938.

1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

Comparing the top photo to the aerial photo, it is obvious the Grant buildings have been replaced, at least once.

Because it is more industrial history, I also include the Melrose Park location.

1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP