Stewart-Warner

Stewart-Warner was an American manufacturer of vehicle instruments (a.k.a. gauges and lubricating equipment) and many other products.

The company was founded as Stewart & Clark Company in 1905 by John K. Stewart. Their speedometers were used in the Ford Model T. In 1912 John Stewart joined with Edgar Bassick to make vehicle instruments and horns. Bassick owned Alemite Co. and Stewart had bought the Warner Instrument Company; thus the name was changed to the Stewart-Warner Corporation. The company started in Chicago and built a manufacturing plant on Diversey Parkway. The building kept expanding and finally covered one million square feet (93,000 m²) and six floors. At its peak S-W employed 6000 people at the Diversey complex. They also made radios and refrigerators, among other products, and produced the ubiquitous "zerk" grease fitting, named after its inventor, associated with the company. In the last years of the company's Chicago factory, it owned a number of aging six-spindle Brown & Sharpe and New Britain screw machines.

Stewart-Warner had other locations, including at 2600 North Pulaski in Chicago, and in later years a distribution center in Elgin, Illinois, located just south of I-90 and east of Rt. 25. The company also opened a plant in Harlow, Essex, England in the late 1950s, which became its European headquarters. Stan Hagerman initially was Director of the UK plant, followed by Curtis W. Van Allen in 1960, who later became Vice President and General Manager of International Operations in Chicago.

The Diversey Parkway complex was the site of both S-W's international headquarters and the Instrument & Alemite manufacturing operations. "Alemite" referred to S-W's line of lubricating stations, and "Instruments" referred to speedometers and similar gauges. The front that faced Diversey was the location of corporate offices, while to the rear was manufacturing with a warehouse south of Diversey. A large employee cafeteria was inside the main building, which also included an underground garage for executives (including CEO Bennett Archambault, who arrived each morning by limousine) with an entrance off Wolcott just north of Diversey. Corporate archives were housed in the basement below the main tower, and executive offices were in the top floors of the tower. Stewart-Warner operated a free shuttle van service for employees who commuted by train to and from the Clybourn Metra (C&NW) station. In 1981 S-W experienced a labor strike at the Chicago operations. The Elgin site was eventually taken over by Middleby Corporation.

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