Photo of the Month

August, 2003

BLOOMSBURG CAR MANUFACTURING COMPANY

Circa 1900

The company fronted on East Street and extended eastward in area that is now Columbia Boulevard (Route U.S. 11) with the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad just south of the plant. Its origins came from the Semple & Taylor Machine and Foundry Company that began in 1863. Over a number of years it expanded and underwent several name changes. Called the Columbia County Iron Manufacturing Company it started producing mine cars in 1871. Mordecai W. Jackson of Berwick, and one of the owners of Jackson & Woodin Manufacturing Company which eventually became part of American Car & Foundry Company, acquired the company in 1873. A few years later, two cousins, George M. Lockard and John D. Lockard, who worked for Jackson and Woodin, purchased the business from Jackson in 1879.

In the same year a fire totally destroyed the plant. Not discouraged, the Lockards rebuilt and expanded firm. Within the next four years they built 4,000 twenty-ton railroad cars in addition to other work. On an annual basis in the 1880s it did one million dollars in business and employed between 200 and 250 men. By the mid-1880s it became a dominate industry in Bloomsburg. In November 1894 its new name was the Bloomsburg Car Manufacturing Company, and the capital stock had increased from $50,000 to $200.000.

The business focused on making freight, mine, and rotary dump cars as well as car wheels. At the start of the 1900s, the company became part of the American Car & Foundry Company. The Bloomsburg Daily in 1902 described the company as having a large export business with markets in Cuba, South America, South Africa, and China. By the time of World War I the company had the capacity to produce 2,000 freight and 3,000 mine cars annually. Unfortunately, this important industry in Bloomsburg came to an abrupt end when a devastating fire destroyed the entire factory consisting of two blocks valued at half a million dollars on August 26, 1930. AC&F never rebuilt the factory due to the size of its Berwick’s plant and the depression.