Steinle Turret Machine Company

About this property

The Steinle Turret Machine Company, now the Goodman Community Center, is a former farm equipment factory begun in 1903 in Madison, Wisconsin, United States, which has been converted to a community center. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007 as a good example of the production shed type of factory. Madison grew slowly from its founding in 1836 until 1848, when it was chosen as the state capital and the site of the University of Wisconsin. Then it grew rapidly, but the main enterprises remained government and education for decades. Then in the 1880s manufacturing of farm equipment began to take hold with the establishment of Fuller and Johnson, Madison Plow Company, Mendota Agricultural Works, and the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company. In 1885 the Gisholt Machine Tools Company also started, producing machines like turret lathes for making other machines - a new manufacturing sector. Madison's diversification of manufacturing continued in the following years, branching into batteries, meat processing, hospital equipment, and other products. Madison's early growth was around the Capitol, but much of the manufacturing growth ended up on the east side. In 1901 the East Side Land Company platted a 45-acre parcel which would contain the Steinle factory, naming it the Fair Oaks plat. The land company recruited manufacturers so that there would be jobs nearby so they could sell residential lots. In 1903 they used a free lot to persuade the Mason-Kipp Company, which manufactured machine lubricators, to move to Fair Oaks. Other factories joined, lots sold, and in 1906 Fair Oaks incorporated as a village. By 1910 it had a population of 1000 and four factories: Madison Plow Company, Mason-Kipp, Steinle Turret, and the U.S. Sugar Company, which processed sugar beets. In 1913, Fair Oaks was annexed by the city of Madison. The American Shredder Company was founded in 1903, directed by J.J. Power, J.C. Harper, and John Aylward, who was also a director of the East Side Land Company. American Shredder's aim was to manufacture "corn self-feeders, corn huskers, and other machinery and supplies." The company bought an industrial lot in the Fair Oaks development near both the Chicago and North Western Railway track and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St Paul Railroad, and in 1903 built the first section of the building that is the subject of this article. That initial building was wood-framed, with walls of load-bearing brick, about 180 feet long by 80 feet wide. It had a monitor roof, which provided ventilation, light, and space for the cranes which moved heavy objects around the factory. This was the production shed type of factory which had appeared about 1900, succeeding the earlier textile mill type of factory building of earlier years. Evidently American Shredder's business was not good, because it leased out the plant in 1906, after only three years.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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