Crane Company - Chicago, IL
The Crane Company, of course, is the familiar plumbing giant whose products are well known for high quality. The company was founded by Richard T. Crane, who "made and poured the first mould on July 4th, 1855" in a primitive frame foundry in Chicago, Illinois.A magazine advertisement from 1896 shows one of the Crane model hydrants photographed on this page. What we don't know yet is the span of years that Crane made and sold hydrants of their own design. Crane Company catalogs from the early 1900s list hydrants -- as well as fire hose, standpipes, and siamese connections -- all sold under the Crane name. But by this point in time we believe Crane was
merely selling the hydrants of other makers, as seen in this 1926 Crane Company catalog page. That hydrant was a carbon copy of the
National hydrant made by American
Foundry and Mfg. Co. of St. Louis, Missouri. A 1924 Canadian catalog with
the imprint --- Crane Limited CRANE VALVES, FITTINGS, PIPING, PLUMBING,
HEATING, MILL GOODS, TOOLS ETC.: CATALOGUE NO. 140 Ottawa, Ontario
--- documents that the company was selling the Eclipse line of fire
hydrants, also produced in St. Louis by Kupferle
Foundry.
However, Crane once again entered the hydrant business when they purchased Chapman Valve Mfg. Co. in 1959. Crane produced the Chapman Valve List 90 model hydrant into the 1960s.
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