Kalamazoo Spring & Axle Company

Carriage Springs to Automobile Bumpers

Kalamazoo has a long, rich history of manufacturing. Over the years some of its companies have gained near-legendary status, firms such as Gibson, Shakespeare, and Checker Motors… while others that were once industry leaders have long since vanished into obscurity. One of those all but forgotten producers of “Made in Kalamazoo” products was the Kalamazoo Spring and Axle Company.

The Kalamazoo Spring and Axle Company stood as one of Kalamazoo’s leading manufacturing firms for nearly 50 years. The company began as a maker of carriage springs and later branched out into farm implements and later still, parts for the automobile industry. The company consistently employed more than 100 workers and earned an impressive reputation nationwide.

Dodge, Kimball & Austin

The roots of the company date back to 1855 when George Dodge established himself as a farm implement dealer and manufacturer at the northwest corner of Rose and Eleanor streets, where the Hilton Garden Inn Kalamazoo (the former Masonic Temple / Rose Street Market building) is today. In January 1869, Dodge was joined by Benjamin Miller Austin and Volney Porter Kimball, an investor from New York. George Dodge retired from the firm in September 1870, leaving Kimball and Austin to carry the company forward.

Kimball, Austin & Company

Business grew steadily for Kimble and Austin as America’s westward expansion opened massive new markets for tools, farm equipment, and other manufactured goods. In 1873 the firm was incorporated as the Kimball & Austin Manufacturing Co. with $200,000 in capital stock. The firm had by then expanded its product line to include steam engines, boilers, sawmills, plows, cultivators, tools, and numerous other farm implements. The company covered an entire city block on North Rose Street, and employed an average year-round workforce of 120 laborers.

“Messrs. Kimball, Austin & Co., have recently purchased the entire block on which their buildings stand. They improved and enlarged their buildings last fall, and are now in as good shape for manufacturing engines, boilers, saw mills, wood working machinery, machinist’s tools, agricultural implements, etc., etc., as any manufactory in the State and they can successfully compete with any manufacturer in any place, in the same class of work.”

—Kalamazoo Daily Telegraph, 8 February 1873

Lorenzo Egleston

Lorenzo Egleston arrived in Kalamazoo by way of Chicago in 1870. A native New Yorker with a background in woodworking and the lumber trade, Egleston joined Francis B. Stockbridge in the lumber business. The Stockbridge, Egleston & Co. lumberyards were located next to the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad line at the corner of Portage and Third streets, where East Crosstown Parkway crosses Portage Street today.

Kalamazoo Spring Works

In May 1874, Kimball and Austin spun off the carriage spring portion of their business to better focus on the boiler manufacturing trade. The new firm would be known as the Kalamazoo Spring Works, with officers Benjamin Austin, Lorenzo Egleston, and J.K. Wagner. Egleston, Wagner & Co. set up shop in an existing foundry building on Kimble & Austin’s North Rose Street property. Kalamazoo Spring Works began small with just 25 workers, but the business grew steadily. The firm was one of just two such manufacturers in the country at the time, and its products soon became known throughout the Midwest.

“The number variety and excellence of the springs made by this establishment we have before spoken of; there are none better in the market and embrace all manner of carriage, platform, side, and seat springs, made form the best Swedes and English steel.”

—Kalamazoo Daily Telegraph, 10 May 1875

After letting go of its lucrative carriage spring trade, the Kimball and Austin Manufacturing Company soon ran aground, sending Volney Kimball, Benjamin Austin, and others into bankruptcy. Lorenzo Egleston and J.K. Wagner continued as proprietors of the Kalamazoo Spring Works with Frances Stockbridge, who had remained in partnership with Egleston since their days in the lumber business.

Kalamazoo Spring & Axle Company

In May 1878, Egleston announced the formation of the Kalamazoo Spring & Axle Company, an expansion of the existing Kalamazoo Spring Works business with a new department for manufacturing steel axles. Egleston contracted with Kalamazoo masons John DeSmit and Abraham DeKubber to build a new factory on the east side of Portage Street, near the Lovell Street intersection. The streetside portion of the building would be a two-story brick structure, 100 feet wide by 50 feet deep, to be used for the company offices and pattern work. A 50-foot by 270-foot manufacturing wing would go up directly behind, with a full-length cupola and skylights for illumination, and a 30-foot by 50-foot engine room. Construction was set to begin in May 1878 with plans for the new structure to be ready for occupancy by fall.

Business remained strong in the new location while the company continued to expand. In 1881 a new addition to the factory nearly doubled its capacity. By then the company was shipping out some 260,000 pounds of springs each month. Sadly, Lorenzo Egleston suffered an apparent stroke in July 1883 from which he never fully recovered and was forced to sell his interest in the firm. Egleston passed away in August 1889 and was buried at Rosehill cemetery in Chicago.

The company was restructured in 1884 with officers Francis B. Stockbridge, George E. Stockbridge, and Samuel S. McCamly. By then the firm was making springs for railroad locomotives, railroad cars, carriages, wagons, and other uses.

Work at the Kalamazoo Spring & Axle Company was hot, dirty, and extremely dangerous. Six coal-burning (and later oil) furnaces fired the forges, where the steel was heated and then bent into shape. The grinding and polishing room housed nine large grindstones, each weighing some 6,000 pounds or more. Powered by a steam boiler system, these massive grindstones spun at a high rate of speed and would break apart on occasion, sending huge chunks of stone careening across the factory floor. One such event occurred in November 1889 when a one-ton piece of grindstone broke off and flew some 50 feet across the room, killing one worker, and leaving a five-foot void in the exterior brick wall.

“A view of the interior of the shop, the blazing furnaces, the showers of molten steel, the steam and smoke and din, the great and effective machinery, the long vistas of workmen and the forges, the cyclopean grindstones and the meteoric sparks that fly in a cascade from the surface of the swiftly revolving grits, these and many other accompanying sights make a spectacle impressive and memorable.”

—Kalamazoo Daily Telegraph, 27 February 1888

Truancy became a problem in 1890 when an alarming number of youngsters were choosing to seek employment instead of attending school. In February that year an officer’s report to the school board found 35 children under the age of sixteen were working in the local factories. The Kalamazoo Spring and Axle Company topped the list of offending manufacturers with 12 such young people under its employ.

Kalamazoo Radiator Company

The owners of the Kalamazoo Spring and Axle Company began a new branch of the firm in 1892 with the formation of the Kalamazoo Radiator Company. J.E. Bidwell was placed in charge of the new venture, which was set up to manufacture steam and hot water radiators for home and commercial heating. Contractor William Welch was hired to build additional buildings next to the existing Kalamazoo Spring and Axle Company plant, including a 60 by 176-foot foundry and a new 25 by 41-foot machine shop.

“They make three styles, the hop-vine, the scroll, and the plain, but of the three the hop-vine is the most handsome, finished in gold and drab. They are among the handsomest and best radiators in the market.”

—Kalamazoo Daily Telegraph, 9 February 1893

Work commenced at the new radiator plant in February 1893, where each day some six tons of raw iron were converted into hundreds of radiator components. Advance orders were booked more than a year in advance when after just four months of work, production came to a sudden halt. On 23 June 1893, a mid-morning fire erupted in the new foundry room and quickly spread throughout the adjoining buildings. Firemen worked diligently to put out the flames, but both firms were left heavily damaged. Nothing was left standing in the new portion of the plant except for the brick walls. Both businesses were forced to suspend work for the summer while the buildings were rebuilt.

Less than three years later, a second devastating fire swept through the radiator company’s production area during the early morning hours of 2 May 1896. The flames were confined to the radiator company, but the building was badly damaged and the roof was almost completely destroyed. Firemen said the “great amount of oil and waste lying about (made it) very hard to extinguish” (Telegraph). The buildings were again rebuilt and production resumed.

Francis Stockbridge, George Stockbridge, and Samuel McCamly all passed away in 1894, after which the company leadership changed several times. The radiator division was sold, but business remained strong for the spring and axle company. By 1906, the firm still employed more than 100 workers, and its products were being sold all over the United States. With an annual output of more than 2,000 tons, the Kalamazoo Spring and Axle Company had become one of the largest manufacturers of its kind in the United States.

C.G. Spring Company

After the First World War, the growing automobile industry spurred new demand for springs and other metal products. In April 1920 the company was sold to Christian Girl, owner of the Cleveland-based Perfection Spring Company. The Kalamazoo plant became known as the C.G. Spring Company and was retooled to manufacture leaf springs and aftermarket bumpers for the auto industry.

The C.G. Spring Company would only last for a short time. Things were beginning to look up in 1921 when the firm was purchased by the U.S. Auto Bumper Company of Chicago, although its manufacturing operation was to remain in Kalamazoo. The firm reported annual revenue in excess of $1,200,000 for the year 1922, and boasted that all but two of the 27 “bumper-equipped” automobiles in the February 1923 Kalamazoo Auto Show carried “C.G. Bumpers” (Gazette).

The company was approaching the end of a record-breaking month in March 1923, when an early morning blaze broke out and destroyed the building, leaving some 370 employees without work. Production was moved briefly to an existing factory building on Fulford Street, but the firm later closed and consolidated its operations to Chicago and Detroit. The property on Portage Street was put up for sale and eventually sold to the Consumers Power Company for the expansion of its gas facility. A Consumers Power substation now occupies a portion of the lot where the Kalamazoo Spring and Axle Company factory once stood.

Written by Keith Howard, Kalamazoo Public Library staff, January 2025