Foundry Products Operations (Cincinnati Milling Machine) - Relocation To Oakley

Relocation To Oakley

In October 1906 CMM announced plans for a new vertically integrated factory to be built in a suburb of Cincinnati named Oakley. A 102-acre (0.41 km2) site was purchased there which was named the Factory Colony. This site would include a two-story administration building 62 x 120 feet (37 m), a foundry building 62 x 280 feet (85 m), a building for cleaning castings and storing 62 x 530 feet (160 m), a charging building 62 x 180 feet (55 m), and a pattern shop 62 x 180 feet (55 m). These buildings would be all of brick and steel construction. A few months later the company announced the foundry would be 350 x 450 feet (140 m) with the pattern shop to be 50 x 160 feet (49 m). A power house would also be erected with a size of 75 x 100 feet. The foundry was planned to provide castings to all companies which would locate to the new industrial park.

Geier reasoned a captive foundry operation was needed because “…the uncertain supply of castings had been a great handicap to production at a time when demand was far greater than our ability to supply… ”.

A few months after making the construction announcement CMM announced they were leasing a foundry on Patternson Street in Cincinnati, to be occupied be the Modern Foundry until the construction was completed in Oakley. The Modern Foundry was the beginnings of what became the Foundry Products Operations of the Cincinnati Milling Machine Company.

The foundry was erected by the Interstate Engineering Company, opening in 1907, and becoming the first production facility in the new Industrial Park, as a separate organization called the Modern Foundry and was located at the corner of Marburg and Disney Street in Oakley. The new foundry was fully operational by 1908 and could melt 30 tons per day in its cupolas.

The foundry also organized with other foundries in Cincinnati: Lunkenheimer, Buckeye Foundry Company and the John B. Morris Foundry to form the Associated Foundries of Cincinnati, supplying castings to Cincinnati industry. The first manager of the Modern Foundry was Walter H. Geier.

By the mid-1930s the Factory Colony was considered one of the world's largest manufacturers of machine tools and employed thousands of workers.