Bartlett-Hayward Company

Bartlett-Hayward Company
Company typePrivate
IndustryMetalworking
Founded1837; 187 years ago (1837)
FounderGeorge M. Hayward
Defunctapprox. 1980 (1980)
SuccessorKoppers
Headquarters
Baltimore, Maryland
,
United States

Bartlett-Hayward Company was an American metalworking company with large foundry, fabrication, and construction business lines, located in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in the 1830s,[1] it was independent until 1925 and since 1927 was owned by Koppers,[2] of which it remained a division long afterward.

The company engaged initially in the production of Latrobe stoves, but by the end of the nineteenth century, its Pigtown complex was the largest iron foundry in the United States, with a diverse output including cast-iron architecture, steam heating equipment, machine parts, railroad engines and piston rings.[3]

During the peak of cast-iron architecture in the nineteenth century, the company was well known for its ornate building façades, which were shipped nationally.[4][5][6] Among their notable projects were their contributions to the Sun Iron Building (1851) in Baltimore and the Harper Brothers Building (1854) in New York City, together credited as among the first major iron-front buildings in the United States.[7][8]

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Bartlett-Hayward expanded to become the country's largest producer of gas holders,[9][10] sending ironworkers far and wide to erect them, mostly for municipal and industrial gasworks.[10]

During World War I, the company made munitions, ship propellers, and other materiel for the United States and its allies.[11] It made millions of artillery shells and the artillery fuzes for them (9.6 million shells in World War I[12]). It designed new fuze models and designed improved processes for making those shells.[11]

The company was acquired by McClintic-Marshall Construction Company in 1925, then sold to Koppers Company in 1927.[13] It was absorbed as a directly owned division of Koppers in 1936.

During World War II, it did not resume artillery shell production (which was handled by other companies) but instead built carriages for antiaircraft artillery (the M3 carriage for the 37 mm gun M1 and the carriage for the 40 mm Bofors gun), naval aircraft catapults, aircraft propellers, and other materiel.[14]

The West Baltimore facility remained open as the home of the Koppers division until the firm left the city about 1980.[15]

  1. ^ Latrobe 1941, pp. 1–10.
  2. ^ Latrobe 1941, pp. xi–xiii.
  3. ^ Historic American Engineering Record 1981, p. 7.
  4. ^ Gayle & Gayle 1998, p. 157.
  5. ^ Historic American Engineering Record 1981, p. 6.
  6. ^ Latrobe 1941, pp. 11–56.
  7. ^ Dilts, James (1998-03-20). "Protecting Baltimore's history, buildings before they're gone with a gust of wind". The Baltimore Sun. Baltimore, Maryland. p. 87. Retrieved 2019-07-14.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference 1913eng was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Olson 1997, p. 308-309.
  10. ^ a b Latrobe 1941, p. 57-141.
  11. ^ a b Latrobe 1941, p. 91-114.
  12. ^ Latrobe 1941, p. 106.
  13. ^ Securities and Exchange Commission 1942, p. 197.
  14. ^ Latrobe 1941, p. 185-204.
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference kelly1986-2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).