In my , I described the finale of the Raymond Manufacturing Company. The company had been sold to the White Sewing Machine Co. of Ohio in 1897, which set out to diversify the operation’s products.
To that end, the Cleveland company built a large factory on the Baker street lot, just up from the Victoria Rink. Its purpose was to make cream separators, then a dairying implement in great demand. Although the cream separators seemed to find a good market, the business could not be sustained.
The head office in Cleveland took over direct management of the Raymond Manufacturing Co. in 1916 and, in 1922, the company’s affairs were wound up. The big, three-storey factory was afterwards occupied by a number of tenants, who each took up a part of the old works.
For example, there was the Hammond Brass & Aluminum Company, the Guelph Granite and Marble Works, the intriguingly-titled St. Williams Plantations Ltd and Windham Plantations Ltd, not to mention Hepburn & Spotton, who entered the new field of radio engineering. Surpassing all the rest in size was the Steele Wire Springs Company.
The aptly named James Steele founded it in 1883 and made steel springs, which it sold to other manufacturers for a variety of end products. Under management of his sons, the company continued to expand and moved from place to place to do so. It bought up the old Raymond plant on Baker street when the White Sewing Machine company sold it in 1926.
Perhaps the most memorable businesses that set up shop .
