October 18 – 21, 2012 Fall Tour in Utica, NY
including sites in Rome, Mohawk Valley and Adirondacks.

Society for Industrial Archeology

A principal route between the Atlantic Seaboard and the Great Lakes, the Mohawk Valley has long been an avenue of commerce as well as the scene of protracted conflict during the French & Indian and Revolutionary Wars.
The natural lowland corridor was enhanced by river improvements during the 1790s and by construction of the Erie Canal, which started at Rome in 1817 and was completed in 1825. The Erie was so successful that it was enlarged starting in the 1830s and joined by connecting waterways including the Chenango Canal that carried coal from northern Pennsylvania to Utica and the Black River Canal that brought Adirondack lumber and produce to at Rome. The 1830s also saw construction of several Mohawk Valley rail lines that were eventually linked to form the mighty New York Central.

Mohawk Valley Cotton Mills, Utica, 1911
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Manufacturers soon set up shop along this busy route between the American interior and the sea. Eliphalet Remington started making firearms at Ilion in 1816. Like many of their New England counterparts, Remington Arms branched out into sewing machines, typewriters, and adding machines and spawned a number of spin-off manufacturers. Woolen and cotton goods poured out of the region’s mills as the Mohawk Valley became America’s leading producer of knit underwear. World War II caused a dramatic shift in production and spawned some entirely new companies and industries. Today, the upper valley hosts a diverse mix of metalworking firms, a handful of textile companies, and a number of specialty manufacturers.

Wire Drawing, Rome, 1908
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The Erie Canal, initially constructed 1817-1825, stretches along the length of the Mohawk Valley. The latest version was completed in 1918 and is fully operational. SIA will visit locks (including E17 at Little Falls, for many years the highest in the worlds), gas and hydro powerhouses, maintenance vessels, tugs, and moveable dams (pictured). Portions of earlier iterations of the canal are still visible.

A ninety minute guided cruise on the canal will give us a water’s eye view of features of the 1918 canal that are still working after almost a century.

Thursday, October 18, 2012
Optional Thursday Pre-tours

Thursday optional Tour update: The Thursday optional Tour (T1) to the Trenton Falls Hydroelectric plant is now full.

Trenton Falls Hydroelectric, West Canada Creek, Oneida County.
A distinctly transitional power station, Trenton Falls combined European-style turbines which soon became outmoded with long-lived choices in electric generating and control equipment. The new powerhouse, added to the old one in 1919, reflects a generation of rapid development in hydroelectric station design and equipment. Together, the two powerhouses show technological and architectural change over a short period of time. The largely-original 56-foot-high dam evokes the magnitude of the station when first built. The construction of the hydro-dam, the earliest power generation facility by the Utica Electric Light and Power Company began late in 1899 and was completed by the spring of 1901. With a vertical drop of over 200′ from the top of the Cascade and the addition of another 50 feet by construction of the dam, a hydraulic head of 266′ was obtained by conducting the water through a pipe seven feet in diameter, 3700 feet along the bank of the chasm to a point where the pipe drops 90 feet straight down to the power house. Trenton Falls was the highest head plant using turbine power generators in the country. Moreover, it used the first turbines designed and built by Americans. The hydroplant, owned by Brookfield Renewable Power since 2002, remains relatively unchanged after a century of operation.

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This facility is extensively documented in the Library of Congress HABS/HAER collection.

F.X. Matt Brewery, Utica.
One of the few remaining American regional breweries, the Matt Brewing Company has prospered for over a century. Under the leadership of the third and fourth generations of the Matt Family, the Brewery is a respected specialty brewery, producing a variety of distinctive, flavorful beers. In 1885, young F.X. Matt left a promising career at the famous Duke of Baden Brewery in the Black Forest region of Germany to immigrate to the United States with the determination to own his own brewery someday. After several years of brewing experience at the Bierbaur Brewery, F.X. Matt re-organized the faltering brewery to create The West End Brewing Company in 1888. Today F.X. Matt produces Utica Club (New Yorkers watching TV in the late 1950s and early 1960s will recall Utica Club’s talking beer steins, Shultz and Dooley), Saranac Pale Are, New Amsterdam Amber Beer, Pete’s Wicked, Brooklyn Lager, Newman’s Albany Amber, Dock Street Amber and Olde Heurich. Our Thursday tour of the brewery will include a beer tasting.

Thursday evening, Opening Reception & Orientation – Hotel Utica
Friday, October 19, 2012
Full Day Process tours

Friday Tour F1 – Utica
Sturges Manufacturing in Utica (http://www.sturgesstraps.com/) makes fabric straps for industrial, military, automotive, mountain climbing and other applications. Founded by Henry Sturges, Sturges Manufacturing, Inc. began producing suspenders in Utica in 1909. Today, Sturges is an ISO-9001 certified manufacturer of custom-designed engineered straps and webbing for safety, firefighting, military and mountain climbing applications. The company recently received a patent on energy-absorbing webbing designed to reduce the shock for workers falling from heights, such as construction workers or window-washers. In 2004, the company invested in a testing lab. The ability to conduct internal quality control testing has made Sturges’s webbing and straps even more marketable. With a continued increase in foreign demand for its engineered products, particularly in Canada and Mexico, exporting activity has increased significantly. Selling to the federal government was once a strong source of revenue for Sturges; during World War II, the company sold over two million rifle slings to the military. Sturges recently was awarded a contract from the U.S. Army Pine Bluff Arsenal to manufacture over 40,000 straps for mortar shells.

Special Metals, New Hartford, makes high temperature nickel and cobalt alloys under vacuum for jet turbine blades other demanding environments. Special Metals started in 1952 as the Metals Division of Utica Drop Forge and Tool Company (founded 1895). Note: Special Metals has limited this tour to US citizens only. The Utica Drop Forge and Tool Company began in 1895 producing pliers. In 1941 the company hired a MIT-trained metallurgist, Dr. Falih Darmara, who became interested in making high-temperature alloys suitable for jet engine components. He believed that alloys depending on reactive elements like titanium and aluminum must be melted, refined, and poured under vacuum to realize their full potential. A six-pound vacuum induction furnace melted the alloy Waspaloy that was to be forged into a blade for a Pratt & Whitney J-48 aircraft engine. This was the starting point of the commercial vacuum melting industry for superalloys. The plant was relocated to New York Mills in 1954 and to the present New Hartford location in 1958 to accommodate the rapidly growing business. New vacuum induction melting furnaces were designed and built and the development of the UDIMET family of alloys began in these early years. Ownership of the Metals Division moved from Utica Drop Forge to Kelsey-Hayes in 1956. Utica Drop Forge left Utica for South Carolina in 1962.

After going through a number of owners, Special Metals became a public company in 1997. Special Metals has been a pioneer in the development of equipment, processes and alloys in the vacuum melted superalloy industry. Special Metals makes INCONEL, INCOLOY, BRIGHTRAY, NILO, NILOMAG, UDMET, MONEL, DURANICKEL, and Waspaloy alloys.

TECT Utica, Whitesboro Founded in 1895 as Utica Drop Forge Company, TECT forges, machines, and grinds turbines and turbine blades for power generation and aerospace applications.

Utica Boilers/ECR, Utica.
ECR designs, manufactures and markets HVAC equipment including boilers, water heaters, hydronic system controls and furnaces in modern plants in Utica and Dunkirk, New York. ECR has been located in New York State since 1928 when Earle C. Reed established manufacturing facilities for cast iron boilers and radiators in Dunkirk and Utica. ECR was formed in 1999 as a merger of The Utica Companies (Utica) and Dunkirk Radiator Corporation and named in Reed’s honor. Domestic heating contributed to the obsolescence of long woolen underwear, an earlier Mohawk Valley invention.

Friday Tour F2 – Rome

Owl Wire and Cable in Rome
Founded in 1954 by partners Robert Kemper and Harold Epoch, Owl Wire & Cable has operated as part of the Marmon Group of companies since 1999. The company manufactures up to 5 million pounds of bare and plated copper wire a week. Its array of products is used in a swath of industries, such as telecommunications, appliance, automotive, residential and non-residential construction, and mining. Owl has three local facilities in Canastota, Boonville, and, most recently, in Rome.

American Alloy Steel: Rome
AAS is a leading distributor of alloy and carbon steel plate and bar stock.
Their new facility, in a portion of the old Rome Cable plant, handles raw
stock and produces precision flame cut shapes and patterns.

Harden Furniture in McConnellsville  is a five generation family business managing forest, harvesting, and drying lumber and making high-end furniture. Founded in 1844, Harden now employs about 300 people.

Meyda Tiffany, Utica.
Over 36 years ago, Meyda Tiffany was founded when Meyer Cohen was asked by his wife Ida (whose names were combined into the company name Meyda) to build a stained glass window in their kitchen so they wouldn’t have to look at the vintage cars in their neighbor’s driveway.  What began as a hobby evolved into America’s leading and oldest manufacturer of custom and decorative lighting. Today Meyda is still a family-run business, with the Cohens’ son, Robert, at the helm.  As the business grew and evolved, and in an effort to lower costs to create Tiffany styled products that were more affordable for a broader market, they developed strong cooperative relationships with several small handicraft workshops overseas.  Meyda designers work very closely with these stained glass studios to maintain the high level of quality. Nearly two decades ago, Meyda Tiffany acquired Quality Bent Glass Company which created original lighting fixtures, including the famous Coca-Cola® chandeliers, and supplied them to Tiffany Studios in New York City in the early 1900s. QBG’s original tools, molds and techniques are used to create nostalgic lighting products today.  In the mid-1990s, Meyda purchased Mecco Art, a metal art studio, and employs its equipment and manufacturing techniques to produce spectacular custom crafted lighting and décor under the Meyda Custom Lighting brand. Under the Meyda Lighting brand, thousands of decorative styles are offered through fine dealers in the U.S. and Canada.  Many designs are inspired by the works of Louis Comfort Tiffany, Dirk Van Erp, Gustav Stickley, and other masters, as well as the Arts and Crafts, Rustic, Gothic, Revival and Contemporary themes. Meyda’s extensive line includes table and floor lamps, ceiling pendants, chandeliers, outdoor lighting, wall sconces, stained glass windows, fireplace screens, billiard/kitchen island fixtures, novelty items, and more.

Friday Tour F3 – Little Falls

Fiberdyne Labs, Frankfort. a privately held company that manufactures fiber optic networking products, digital billboards, and photonic devices and provides manufacturing and installation services for CATV and telecommunications with a focus on the North American market. The company was established in 1992 and started to distribute LED lighting in 2007 under the brand name Edison LED.

Kwik-Kut Manufacturing in Mohawk.
Kwik-Kut makes circular vegetable choppers, egg rings, and “Koffee Koolers”. William and Dorothy Carter first started manufacturing the product in their garage in Ilion in the 1920s.  In 1955 Kwik-Kut out-grew the garage and moved to its current facility in Mohawk. In 1966 Mr. John Fitzer purchased the company upon his retirement from the Remington Arms Company. Mr. Fitzer designed many of the machines and products. Under Mr. Fitzer’s direction, Kwik-Kut added new products and increased production. In 1989 the company passed to current owner, Mary Morse, the daughter of John Fitzer; she literally grew up in the business. Much of the equipment in daily use at Kwik-Kut was salvaged from Remington Arms.

Feldmeier Equipment, Little Falls.
This family owned business began in 1952 making heat exchangers in Syracuse. In 1998 Feldmeier acquired the Little Falls stainless steel tank facility that had been owned by Cherry-Burrell. J. G. Cherry began manufacturing insulated cream cans in Cedar Rapids in 1880 and expanded to making egg crates, butter cutters, and churns. David Burrell also began manufacturing in 1880 producing cream separators, pasteurizers, tank trucks, and milking machines in Little Falls. Cherry, Burrell, and five other dairy equipment manufacturers merged in 1928. In 1932 the new company developed a practical way to weld stainless steel. They made milk bottling equipment, ice cream making machinery, and, in 1956 invented the Neapolitan Three Tube Vogt Ice Cream Freezer. Today Feldmeier supplies stainless steel tanks to the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries, for food, beverage, and dairy production, and for industrial and chemical purposes.

Iberdrola Hardscrabble Wind Project, Towns of Fairfield and Norway.
Hardscrabble features 37 American-made Gamesa wind turbines which stand on 100-meter towers. The tower sections are manufactured in Wisconsin, while the rest of the turbine — the blades, nacelle, and hub — were manufactured and assembled in Pennsylvania. The project produces enough electricity to power over 25,000 typical houses each year. The project came online in January of 2011.

Friday Tour F4 – Sharon Springs

AMT Castings, Sharon Springs, produces precision ferrous and non-ferrous casting using the lost wax process for aero-space, automotive, electronic, firearm, and machine applications.

Thistle Hill Weavers, Cherry Valley, ,
produce reproduction 17th, 18th, and 19th century fabrics on early 20th century Crompton & Knowles dobby and Jacquard looms. Rabbit Goodie and her team have woven fabrics used as carpet, drapery, upholstery, and costumes in museums and historic house restorations as well as dozens of feature films.
Adelphi Paper Hangings, Sharon Springs, produces custom and reproduction historic wallpaper using hand block printing equipment and techniques that date to the 18th and 19th centuries. Their patterns include designs from the 1740s through the 1930s drafted from originals in the collections of Historic New England, Colonial Williamsburg, and the Smithsonian, as well as samples provided by clients looking for accurate reproductions.
Mohawk Valley Forgeworks, Ames (no website). Michael McCarthy manufactures repair parts for obsolete machinery, produces forged hardware for restoration projects, creates modern metalwork, and experiments with bloomery smelting at his at his turn-of-the-century forge and machine shop.

Saturday, October 20, 2012
Full Day tour and boat ride

The Erie Canal & Canalside Industries
Saturday’s tour will focus on the Erie Canal, America’s most influential manmade waterway, and on the Mohawk Valley manufacturers and industrial communities that grew along its banks. The Erie Canal was so successful that it had to be enlarged several times to accommodate larger boats and more traffic.

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We will see segments of pre-Erie navigation, the original Erie Canal (Clinton’s Ditch), started in Rome in 1817 and completed in 1825, the Enlarged Erie, constructed 1836-62, and the Erie Barge Canal, built 1905-1918. The early 20th century version is still in service with virtually all of its original structures and equipment intact. Highlights will include behind the scenes examination of locks, moveable dams, gasoline and hydroelectric powerhouses, and harbor facilities, along with tugboats, dredges, and other vessels of the “New York Navy”.

Erie Canal at Utica Weighlock ca. 1915
Hotel Utica in background
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The trip will culminate with a boat ride through two locks and one of the prettiest segments of the canal system at what should be the height of the fall foliage season. Along the way we’ll pass textile mills, coal gas plants, tool factories, Remington Arms, and other manufacturers that were sited to take advantage of easy canal transport.

Lock 17, Little Falls, 1921 – select to enlarge photograph

Evening Banquet – Saturday, October 20
This year’s banquet will be held at Pier’s & Blake, a new restaurant housed in the National Register listed Doyle Hardware Building (1881-1901), across the street from Utica’s Union Station.

Sunday, October 21, 2012
Optional post-tours

Adirondack Scenic Railroad, Utica Adirondack Scenic Railroad Sunday Fall Foliage Tour. Utica to Thendara and return with optional lunch stop/layover at Buffalo Head Restaurant in Forestport – Depart 11:30 – Return 4:30
Bicycle tour along old Erie Canal – Rome to Chittenango Landing Canal Boat Museum & return. – 54 mile round-trip, mostly level on off-road stone dust trail.