Stewart Iron Works

Stewart Iron Works
Company typeCorporation
IndustryIronworks
Founded1862 (1862)
HeadquartersErlanger, Kentucky, United States
Key people
  • Richard C. Stewart, Sr. (founder)
  • Richard C. Stewart, Jr.
  • Wallace A. Stewart
  • John Hunnicutt
  • Joseph Milburn
  • Mike Huseman
ProductsFencing, Railing, Gates
Number of employees
42 (2019)
ParentHuseman Group
Websitestewartironworks.com
An advertisement for the Stewart Iron Works Co. that appeared in the February 1909 edition of House and Garden featuring one of the company's fences installed in front of a home designed by the Chicago architect Robert Seyfarth.

Stewart Iron Works is an American ironworks plant in Erlanger, Kentucky. It is one of the region's oldest manufacturing firms and at its peak was the largest iron fence maker in the world.[1][2] Stewart's is the second-oldest iron company in continuous operation in the United States.[3] Based at 30 Kenton Lands Rd, its first location was at 8th & Madison in Covington, Kentucky. It is currently owned by the HGC Group of Companies but was originally established by the Scottish American Stewart family.[4] The company was founded in 1862 and incorporated in 1910.[1]

Manufacturing materials for prison construction, Stewart marketed to jails using salesmen who were all engineers.[5] 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,[3] as well as the entrance gates to the White House, the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center, and the U.S. House of Representatives,[4] The steel cell blocks manufactured in the 1930s for Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary and Sing Sing were made by Stewart.[6] At one time, the company supplied the majority of the U.S.'s cemetery fences and gates.[7]

  1. ^ a b Sweet's catalogue of building construction (Public domain ed.). Sweet's Catalogue Service, Inc. 1913. pp. 498–. Retrieved 6 September 2012.
  2. ^ Cincinnati Magazine. Emmis Communications. July 1991. p. 60. ISSN 0746-8210. Retrieved 6 September 2012.
  3. ^ a b Cincinnati Magazine. Emmis Communications. April 2003. pp. 135–. ISSN 0746-8210. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
  4. ^ a b "Stewart Iron Works thrived in Covington in early 1900s Excerpt from "The encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky"". Cincinnati Post. 23 October 2006. Archived from the original on 14 October 2008. Retrieved 6 September 2012.
  5. ^ Popular Mechanics. Hearst Magazines. March 1955. pp. 141–. ISSN 0032-4558. Retrieved 6 September 2012.
  6. ^ Flynn, Terry (February 11, 2000). "100+ years in business: These firms do it right". The Cincinnati Enquirer. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
  7. ^ Southerland, Cindy (1 December 2010). Cemeteries Of Carson City And Carson Valley. Arcadia Publishing. pp. 37–. ISBN 978-0-7385-8106-4. Retrieved 8 September 2012.