Stewart Iron Works
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| Corporation | |
| Industry | Ironworks |
| Founded | 1862 |
| Headquarters | Erlanger, Kentucky, United States |
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Key people
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| Products | Fencing, Railing, Gates |
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Number of employees
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20 (2016) |
| Website | stewartironworks |
Stewart Iron Works is an American ironworks plant in Erlanger, Kentucky. It is one of the city's oldest manufacturing firms and at its peak was the largest iron fence maker in the world. Stewart's is the second-oldest iron company in continuous operation in the United States. Based at 30 Kenton Lands Rd, its first location was at 8th & Madison in Covington, Kentucky. Owned by the Stewart Iron Works Co., Inc., it was established by the Scottish American Stewart family. The company was founded in 1862 and incorporated in 1910.
Manufacturing materials for prison construction, Stewart marketed to jails using salesmen who were all engineers. As an iron supplier to many major American institutions, Stewart's supplied gates and fences for the Panama Canal, the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., the Taft Museum, as well as the entrance gates to the White House, the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center, and the U.S. House of Representatives, The steel cell blocks manufactured in the 1930s for Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary and Sing Sing were made by Stewart. At one time, the company supplied the majority of the U.S.'s cemetery fences and gates.
In 1862, Robert C. Stewart opened a shop in Covington which built iron fences; it was located on 8th Street near Madison. Two of his sons, Robert Jr. and Wallace began a similar business in Wichita, Kansas in 1886. They returned to Covington nine years later, and joined their father's business, along with a third brother. They opened a bridge works plant in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a related service, called Stewart Jail Works. Needing more space, the brothers built a new plant on 8 acres (3.2 ha) near Madison and 17th Streets in 1903. The firm had four buildings to house its five divisions, the jail cell division, a truck division, wrought iron furniture and fence division, and a chain-link fence division. A branch in Cincinnati operated during the period of 1903 through 1915. The company won the grand prize and gold medal in construction at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. By 1915, the company had 600 employees. Stewart began producing trucks in 1912, which placed the company in debt by the end of the 1920s. During World War I, it was an important supplier of trucks, at its peak producing 100 for the U.S. Army in 1918, but ceased truck manufacturing a decade later.
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Wikipedia