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Permalink Reply by Jan Carter on September 14, 2013 at 10:36

The year 1963 —Folk music; the airplane crash death of country music star Patsy Cline; the escalation of fighting in Vietnam; the assassination of President John F. Kennedy — was also a black year for Titusville.

Those who lived here at that time remember 1963 as the year Struthers Wells Corporation closed most of its Titusville operations.

This event caused much bitterness (some of it exaggerated or unfounded) in the area for the next 20 years. The closing of Titusville Forge and gradual elimination of Titusville Iron Works angered local people more than some of the national (and global) news events of the 1960s.

Many stories circulated in the Titusville area concerning economic turmoil during the first six months of 1963. Most of these tales related to Struthers Wells Corporation have proven to be lies or half-truths. This article (originally written a quarter-century ago) is an attempt to clarify what actually happened during those turbulent months.

Struthers Wells Corporation operated two Titusville plants as of Feb. 1, 1963. The larger of these was the Titusville Forge Division, located at 617 E. Central Ave. This plant, founded in 1897, employed 400 to 450 people. Titusville's second Struthers Wells plant was the Titusville Iron Works Division, located at 315 S. Franklin St. This plant, founded in 1860, was Titusville's oldest industry and employed 350. The iron works also housed the general office of Struthers Wells Corporation, headquartered in New York City (Rockefeller Center), and also was the engineering department site for both Titusville plants.

A third Struthers Wells plant was located in Warren. It was the city's oldest industry (founded in 1851) and employed 500 people.

Smith-Moon Company, in Kansas, completed the roster of Struthers Wells Corporation plants in 1963.

Titusville Iron Works, Titusville Forge and Struthers Wells, in Warren, had intertwined histories (more or less) prior to coming under common ownership in 1919-1920. Incorporation and combination of sales and management took place between 1928-1932.

Employment had been declining at both Titusville Struthers Wells plants throughout much of the 1950s. Several buildings at the iron works and forge operations stood completely or partially empty because of the sale or elimination of profitable product lines. Production of tangent benders, broaching machines and press brakes (used by aircraft, automobile and appliance companies) at the Titusville Iron Works ceased after manufacturing and patent rights were sold to the Taylor-Winfield Corporation, in Warren, Ohio, in 1957.

Wasteful boiler manufacturing methods, labor stoppages and a lawsuit resulting from faulty workmanship related to the firm's ballistic missile silo auxiliary storage vessels, also had negative impacts on Struthers Wells' "bottom line."

The firm was losing money by the time John T. Dillon Jr.'s heirs sold the plants, in 1960, to a New York City investment group headed by Jerry Finkelstein, a lawyer, real estate investor and journal publisher. Charles Hutner, one of film actress Zsa Zsa Gabor's numerous ex-husbands, was also a Finkelstein Struthers Wells investment partner.

Deaths and retirement of longtime Titusville Iron Works executives also sapped the firm's strength. Employment records published in 1959, for the year 1957, show that Titusville Iron Works employed 478 people and 614 worked at the forge division. Fifteen years earlier, the Titusville operations employed a total of 3,000 people (for World War II defense-related orders), many of whom lived in Oil City and Franklin.

Personnel office and central storeroom operations for both Titusville Struthers Wells plants had been consolidated as a result of this decline in 1960-1961. Merger of the Titusville and Warren divisions' administrative office activities was announced in 1962. Rumors related to the iron works and forge plants began circulating later that year. Local residents learned something was actually brewing when a headline in The Titusville Herald, on Feb. 12, 1963, read: "Struthers Wells Plans To Drop Profitless Products." Four days later, the Titusville Industrial Fund held a special meeting regarding Struthers Wells operating at a loss. Headlines read on Feb. 16: "One Local Plant May Be Affected." Rumors were heard regarding the forge division's impending closing.

James Spence, general manager of The Titusville Herald, tried to find humor in the forge plant's rumored shutdown. A headlines in The Herald's sports section on April 1, 1963, read: "Pittsburgh Pirates Plan To Move Club To Titusville." (The Pirates baseball organization in 1963 was planning to eventually move from antiquated Forbes Field into a new stadium by the decade's end.)

Wrote Spence, whose article had the Pirates moving to Carter Field: "The Pirates' move has cleared up a big rumor around town. Now it is known that the forge works is being moved out to make room for more bleachers and manager Danny Murtaugh's bullpen."

This fictitious story, which was believed by many local people, concluded with the following words: "Old-time sports fans contacted last night said within their memories this was the biggest sports announcement to hit the village on April Fool's Day."

Spence received notoriety throughout western Pennsylvania, and was interviewed on Pittsburgh's KDKA-TV, as a result of his Pirates "story." Some area residents, however, were not amused.

The dreaded day came the same week as this April Fool's joke. On April 3, 1963, Struthers Wells Corporation president James Sweeney announced that the forge division was to be phased out and the boiler business and patents were sold to Cleaver-Brooks Company, of Milwaukee, and Lebanon.

More than 600 jobs were lost in Titusville as a result of these decisions.

James B. Stevenson, publisher of The Herald, wrote the following words one day later: "Yesterday was a gray and gloomy day. Suddenly, shortly after noon when the clouds seemed to be their thickest, the sun broke through in all its spring brilliance. We are speaking of the weather.

"But now, let's turn to Titusville's industrial situation. It, too, was gloomy yesterday, but we have every confidence that the sunshine of better news will clear away the gloom. If it doesn't come soon, it will later."

Capital generated from the boiler business sale and the forge division's liquidation was used to develop new product lines and expand existing ones at Struthers Wells' Warren and Kansas plants.

Many changes that would have a positive economic effect on Titusville were being made simultaneous with the closing of the plants.

In February of 1963, Universal-Cyclops Steel announced the purchase of the former Titusville forge welding shop and a warehouse for future expansion. One hundred jobs were to be added. Cyclops eventually purchased the rest of the forge site in 1984.

Other unrelated local developments under way in 1963, including the purchase and expansion of Skyline Industries, by Phillips Petroleum Corporation; the rebuilding of Drake Well Museum; Oil Creek State Park's founding; the "Better Days" merger of the Titusville Trust Company with Warren Bank & Trust Company; and the establishment of the University of Pittsburgh at Titusville.

It must be said that most of these developments were planned before the Struthers Wells closing was announced. No proof has ever been found for the rumor that the leaders of the Titusville Industrial Fund allowed the forge to die because they wanted to transform the Queen City into a college-tourist town.

Harold "Bud" Finch, a machine shop supervisor/tooling engineer at both the iron works and forge divisions, gave his views, in 1988, concerning the effects these plant closings had on Titusville. "A lot of the older fellows never went back to work," he said. "Some younger men went to work at Joy, in Franklin, and the shops in Warren and Erie. Cyclops expanded enough to take up the slack that the iron works and forge left when they closed. Struthers Wells would have gone bankrupt if they had stayed here."

Complete renovation of the landmark forge structures, located adjacent to Carter Field on East Central Avenue and East Spring Street, was undertaken between 2005 and 2012.

A ribbon cutting ceremony was held in September 2011. Most of the old iron works and forge employees were long dead by the time the industrial relic was "resurrected." Many area residents were more excited about Warner's Bakery reopening. Time marches on.

Who now resides in the old metallurgy building that belonged to Titusville Iron Works?