Consolidated Steel
Consolidated Steel Corporation was an American steel and shipbuilding business. Consolidated built ships during World War II in two locations: Wilmington, California and Orange, Texas. It was created in 1929 by the merger of Llewellyn Iron Works, Baker Iron Works and Union Iron Works, all of Los Angeles.
Baker Iron Works of Los Angeles also manufactured mining equipment. The Baker Iron Works had its start at Los Angeles, California, about 1877, when Milo S. Baker acquired a small machine shop there. The business, begun on a small scale as M.S. Baker & Company, grew quite rapidly.
A much larger facility was erected in 1886 and in June of that year the business was incorporated as the Baker Iron Works with capital stock of $75,000. Five Directors were named: Milo S. Baker, E.H. Booth, Charles F. Kimball, Fred L. Baker (Milo’s son), and H.T. Neuree. {108}
Less than a year later, Baker erected a $15,000 building [equivalent to $300,000 in today’s buying power] on Buena Vista Street near College.
Baker Iron Works had a great many different products, manufacturing mining, milling, pumping, hoisting, oil and well drilling machinery, streetcars, boilers, oven and heating furnaces, as well as a line of architectural iron. It seems to have been especially noteworthy for steam boiler fabrication, installation and maintenance.
According to one authority, in 1889 Baker produced the first locomotive built in Los Angeles, designed by Milo’s son Fred, vice president of the firm.
Another authority {106} says Baker built horse cars and perhaps street cars for Los Angeles, Pasadena and other communities in the Los Angeles area and that they built some larger cars for the Santa Ana & Orange Motor Road in 1898. According to this authority, after Pacific Electric bought this line, the cars were revamped and continued in service until 1920. It is claimed that In the early 1890s, Street Railway Journal reportedly ranked Baker “among the principal car builders on the Pacific Coast.” There is also some possibility Baker built some of the L.A. cable cars too. (Yes, San Francisco was not the only city to have cable cars. Within four years of San Francisco’s first, eight other cities had them: Brooklyn; Chicago; Hoboken, NY; Kansas City; Los Angeles; Oakland, CA; Omaha; and St. Louis.)
The only records we have been able to find is for the construction, in 1887, of six street cars for the City & Central Street Railway. {107}
According to an article in the 1 January 1890 issue of the Los Angeles Times, the Baker works then occupied some 25,000 square feet (2,300 m2) and provided employment to 75 men. A large variety of manufacturing was being done. The foundry was making iron and brass castings to fit nearly all kinds of machinery for mining and milling purposes, besides pumping plants for large and small water-works, and steam plants for all the variety of uses to which steam was put. They manufactured their own boilers. They were also manufacturing oil-boring tools and rigs, and constructing elevators—both passenger and freight—in all varieties: hydraulic steam or hand. It was claimed by the newspaper that Baker had installed nearly all the first class passenger elevators in Southern California. The article said they manufacture street-cars and did other railroad work to order and claimed to make the best gang plows and road and field rollers that could be obtained anywhere. They also installed heating and ventilating plants for public buildings, both steam, hot water and hot air. And they did architectural iron-work. Milo S. Baker was then President, J.E. Sills was Vice-President and Treasurer, and Fred L. Baker (Milo’s son) was Secretary and Plant Superintendent.
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