- Buckeye Steel Castings
Buckeye Steel Castings was a Columbus,
Ohio steel maker best known today for its longtime president,Samuel P. Bush , who was the grandfather of PresidentGeorge H.W. Bush and great-grandfather of PresidentGeorge W. Bush .Buckeye, named for the
Ohio Buckeye tree, was founded in Columbus as the Murray-Hayden Foundry, which madeiron farm implements. Finding success manufacturing ironrailroad car couplers, the name changed to the Buckeye Automatic Car Coupler Company in 1891 and Buckeye Malleable Iron and Coupler Company in 1894. Eventually demand for stronger coupling assemblies led to a switch tosteel and the name Buckeye Steel Castings.The business was closely associated with rail baron
E.H. Harriman and for some time was controlled byFrank Rockefeller , the brother of oil magnateJohn D. Rockefeller . In 1901 Buckeye hired Samuel Prescott "S.P." Bush as General Manager. Bush, a graduate ofStevens Institute of Technology , had worked his way up from apprentice mechanic at the locally-basedPittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad to Superintendent of Motive Power at that railroad and, briefly, the Milwaukee Road. In 1908 Rockefeller departed and Bush took over as President, a job he would hold until 1928. During this period Bush became known as a top industrialist and had political influence inWashington, D.C. .Bush had an advanced business outlook for his day and implemented many modern management techniques as well as an unusually generous working environment.
In 1967, the parent company Buckeye International, Inc. was formed, and then acquired in 1980 by
Worthington Industries through a stockmerger . Worthington sold Buckeye Steel in 1999, but it went bankrupt in 2002.The former president of Worthington, Donald Malenick, formed an investment group to purchase the assets of Buckeye, and has reopened the business as Columbus Steel Castings.
External links
* [http://www.columbussteel.com/ Columbus Steel Castings website]
* [http://www.scripophily.net/bucsteelcasc1.html Buckeye Steel Castings Company Stock Certificate]
* [http://publications.ohiohistory.org/ohstemplate.cfm?action=detail&Page=0090238.html&StartPage=238&EndPage=258&volume=90¬es=&newtitle=Volume%2090%20Page%20238 Scientific Management and Welfare Work in Early Twentieth Century American Business: The Buckeye Steel Castings Company] - from "Ohio History", the scholarly journal of theOhio Historical Society
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