A New Marietta Industry

The Marietta Tri-Weekly Register, December 18, 1890

The Liedecker Tool Company paid a fair price for the Franks' property on Second Street and have industriously labored for the last three months in cleaning and painting the extensive buildings and putting in new and expensive machinery for lathe, forge and drill work. three or four forges are already in place, with derricks hung to swing the great red chunks of iron and steel to and from the ponderous steam-hammer, which works so nicely that it can break the crystal of a watch and leave the works unharmed, or flatten, at a single blow, a huge roll of iron or steel.

The boilers are new and the machinery throughout moves noiselessly. A great tank for water is erected and is the work of William Harris of Marietta.

Much of the work in putting in place the intricate machinery was done by Thomas Goldsmith, a former Marietta boy, who is now a good machinist. He works under the immediate supervision of Messrs. W. G. Hayes and I. S. Shryrock, two of the proprietors, who thoroughly understand their business. A. N. Dyer is the blacksmith now at the forge, a veritable John Brown, of Harper's Ferry fame, in skill and determination.

This firm will be enabled to cut the most delicate thread in iron or steel, or rift the heaviest output of the blue-flamed forge. 

About 1837, John O. Cram, A. T. Nye and Mr. Hendrie erected a foundry on this identical spot, and subsequently Franks & Hendrie's great oval sign - "Machine Shop" - hung over the gateway.

It is no child's play to set this great industry in motion for very little of the old machinery left in the building by Captain Franks could be utilized readily and remodeled to suit modern ideas; for at one side of the building lies, rusty and forlorn, one of the engines of the "Miles Greenwood" build of "ye olden time."

The upper rooms will be utilized for sleeping apartments, in part, and for lighter machinery and storage. Natural gas sheds its radiant heat throughout.

Not only are they experts in machinery adapted to every branch of the oil business, but this enterprising firm understand all the intricacies of gas fitting and plumbing as well as heavier work.

An establishment of this kind in the center of a fast developing oil territory, and with the advantages of gas, coke, coal, rail and river transportation, etc., cannot fail to successfully compete with foreign plants.