History
The company was founded by Franz Falk, who was from Germany and worked at a brewery. In 1848, he left Germany to find work in the United States. In a partnership with Frederick Goes, Falk bought a piece of land in 1856 in the Menomonee Valley on the outskirts of Milwaukee and built "The Bavaria Brewery". Falk died in 1882, and his sons Louis, Frank, Otto, and Herman took over the business. The brewery was destroyed in 1889 by a fire but was rebuilt in 1892. Subsequently, it was destroyed again by fire. Eventually, the sons would sell the brewery to Frederick Pabst.
Herman Falk started his own business with his share of brewery money. With an interest in mechanics, Falk began producing wagon axles. That business would fail, and Herman began a general purpose machine shop next to a building of the Pabst Brewing Company, where he had worked years before. Falk occasionally assisted Pabst, making stage machinery for Milwaukee's Pabst Theater.
In 1888 Falk began focusing on electric street railways. He developed a portable cast welding machine on wheels that would earn his share of work in the rail industry. His invention helped him incorporate "Falk Manufacturing Company" on May 23, 1895. Herman Falk then broadened his work, opening gear shops. The company name was shortened to the "Falk Company" and eventually expanded worldwide. In 2005 the company was bought by Rexnord.
Read more about this topic: Falk Corporation
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“A poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
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—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)