Strait Manufacturing Company

Plows, Windmills, and Tubular Wells

Ransom E. Strait (1838-1915)

Ransom Egbert Strait was a farmer with an ambitious knack for invention. During the 1860s, Strait was working on his farm in Otsego County, New York, when he came up with an idea for a horsedrawn plow with a unique “rotary wheel” moldboard that made breaking ground easier. Sensing the opportunities in Michigan, Strait moved his family to Galesburg, where he operated a steam-driven planing mill for a time and began manufacturing his patented “rotary plows.”

Strait Wind Mill Company

By 1879, Strait had designed and patented a new “wind engine” and began building windmills in his Galesburg machine shop. “He furnishes the whole thing and puts it in good working order for fifty dollars,” wrote the Kalamazoo Gazette in August that year. “He can hardly supply the wants of farmers who are his main patrons.” In January 1880, he organized the Strait Wind Mill Company with partners A.J. Burdick, Sidney Barlow, and George P. Youmans. Within months the company was putting up windmills as fast as they could make them.

“Strait Wind Mill company are working their shops and foundry to their utmost capacity. Their business is a blazing high.”

—Kalamazoo Gazette, 9 April 1880

In 1883, Strait & Co. added a brass foundry to its operation and began manufacturing a submersible water pump (“tubular well”), which Strait had designed and patented. Business in Galesburg was good, but the following spring, Strait sold his share of the company to partners Barlow and Youmans and returned to New York to care for his aging parents. Ransom and Maria Strait later moved to California, where Strait would spend his retirement years farming and defending his patents in court. Ransom Strait passed away in 1919 in Sacramento at the age of 76.

Lacelle J. Strait (1861-1950)

Meanwhile, Ransom Strait’s son Lacelle had begun working in Galesburg as a machinist, most likely in conjunction with his father’s newly added foundry. Lacelle Strait, the oldest of Ransom and Maria Strait’s six children, was born in April 1861 in the town of Laurnes, Otsego County, New York. He moved to Michigan with his parents and remained in Galesburg until adulthood.

In September 1884, Lacelle married Minnie Maud Carson in Galesburg and soon after moved to Kalamazoo, where he formed a partnership with machinist Arthur Cameron. Strait & Cameron set up shop on North Burdick Street and began to manufacture “Strait’s patent tubular well cylinder and valve,” which his father had designed and patented.

“Strait & Packard have completed the erection of a brick building in the rear of Packard’s house to be used for a brass foundry.”

—Kalamazoo Gazette, 22 January 1889

Strait & Packard Manufacturing Company

The Straits returned to New York for a brief time, but were back in Kalamazoo by the latter part of 1888, when Strait formed the Strait & Packard Manufacturing Company with banker Albert Henry and local photographer Cullen C. Packard. They built a small brass foundry building behind Packard’s house on West Cedar Street and most likely began manufacturing parts for Packard’s recently patented photographic component called the Packard Shutter.

After a brief time on Cedar Street, Strait & Packard moved their operation into the former Western Cart Company building on Portage Street, where they continued manufacturing brass valves and castings for industrial use. Strait & Packard shared the building for a time with the Humphrey Brothers Manufacturing and Plating Company after the Humphrey building was damaged by fire. A portion of their machine shop had also served as a part-time roller-skating venue known as the Excelsior Rink.

The Strait Manufacturing Company

Strait restructured the firm in January 1892 as The Strait Manufacturing Company, a limited partnership between Strait, C.C. Packard, and “special partner” Milfred Vosburg of Charleston, Michigan. The firm employed 13 workers by then, and specialized in brass castings of all sizes, from water well components to a “monster brass wheel, the largest brass casting ever poured in Kalamazoo” (Gazette).

During the mid-1890s, Strait devised a method for generating steam by burning oil instead of coal, which offered somewhat of a cost advantage. Strait presented his idea to the Kalamazoo city council members, who put his oil burning apparatus into use in the city’s new municipal lighting plant.

By 1895, Strait was a sole proprietor when he sold the business to Frederick A. Taylor. Taylor changed the name to Standard Brass Works and moved it to a former chair factory on West Ransom Street near the Michigan Central Railroad’s South Haven line. Strait continued working as a machinist in his old Portage Street shop until about 1899. By 1901, the Straits had moved to California and settled in Sacramento where his parents and son were living. Lacelle Strait remained in California until his death in August 1950 at the age of 89.

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