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Description
A collection of records, guides and booklets, and photographs related to the McNally Company of Pittsburg, Kansas.
Thomas McNally Sr. and his wife, immigrants from Ireland and boilermakers in Wisconsin, accepted the Pittsburg Board of Trade’s offer to build a 40’ by 80’ wooden boiler shop for the McNally’s. Local coal mines needed his trade because they ran on steam engines and were growing in size and number. McNally expanded business to general repairs and machinery. Following his father’s death in 1906 Thomas McNally Jr. took over the business at the age of 23 and studied and worked under other boilermakers in surrounding states. Business expanded with the rise of engines and steel manufacturing. Following World War I, McNally began doing business with an iron foundry, leading to heavy machinery manufacturing, and coal processing equipment development. McNally began building coal mining tipples which expanded to building machinery for all facets of coal mining and processing. In 1932, McNally incorporated the mechanical coal washing process used in England to his own business, allowing it to thrive during the Great Depression. McNally built machinery and plants all over the United States and abroad. By 1955, McNally had plants in every continent but Antarctica. The presidency of the company transferred to Thomas McNally Jr.’s son Edward in 1955, when coal production began decreasing. He expanded the company to produce tire molds, coke plant machinery, dredging equipment, oversize water valves for irrigation lines, dam gates and dam gate hoists. In the late 1980s, production began waning once again and the McNally company was sold to Svedala, a Swedish company. One of the Pittsburg plants was sold in 1991 and the company was sold to Metso which shut down the other shop in 2002.
Publication Date
9-8-2021
Keywords
Business and Industry
Disciplines
Business
Size of Collection
5 linear feet
Dates of Collection
1952-2013
Manuscript Number
SpC MS 0276
Recommended Citation
Special Collections, Leonard H. Axe Library, "McNally Pittsburg collection, 1952-2013" (2021). Finding Aids. 306.
https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/fa/306
