Dickson Manufacturing Company was an American manufacturer of boilers,

blast furnace A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also others such as lead or copper. ''Blast'' refers to the combustion air being "forced" or supplied above atmospheri ...

s and

steam engines A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be tra ...

used in various industries but most known in

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a p ...

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the loco ...

s. The company also designed and constructed steam powered mine cable hoists. It was founded in Scranton, Pennsylvania by Thomas Dickson in 1856. In total, the company produced 1,334 steam locomotives until it was taken over by ALCO in 1901.

History

Precursor company

In 1855, Thomas Dickson, with his brothers John and George, founded an engineering company named Dickson & Company in Carbondale, Pennsylvania. A year later it was moved to the newly incorporated Scranton, Pennsylvania, at the request of

George Scranton George Whitfield Scranton (May 11, 1811 – March 24, 1861) was an American industrialist and politician, a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania from March 4, 1859, until his death in 1861. Moving to Pe ...

. Their first major contract was to supply locomotives for a new railroad constructed by the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company. By 1862, business was booming and the company was re-incorporated as the Dickson Manufacturing Company.

Formation

The company maintained its main offices and shops on Penn Avenue in Scranton,. The Cliff Works, a locomotive manufacturing company on Cliff Street in Scranton was acquired in 1862. In 1866, a foundry in Wilkes-Barre, was added and later the company opened an office in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. In the first years as the Dickson Manufacturing Company, five or six locomotives were being built each year. By the early 1870s, this had risen to five locomotives a month. They also built railroad cars and a variety of mining machinery. In 1882, they rebuilt their Penn Avenue shops, creating 29,000 square feet of space. The company continued to expand and by 1890 its shops covered six acres and employed more than 1,200 workers.

Acquisition

On 24 June 1901, the company's locomotive division was merged with seven other manufacturing firms to form

American Locomotive Company The American Locomotive Company (often shortened to ALCO, ALCo or Alco) was an American manufacturer of locomotives, diesel generators, steel, and tanks that operated from 1901 to 1969. The company was formed by the merger of seven smaller locomo ...

(ALCO); the rest of the company became part of

Allis-Chalmers Allis-Chalmers was a U.S. manufacturer of machinery for various industries. Its business lines included agricultural equipment, construction equipment, power generation and power transmission equipment, and machinery for use in industrial s ...

. ALCO ceased locomotive production at the former Dickson works in 1909.

Recent history

The former shops still stand, and are featured in the opening sequence of the television show "

The Office ''The Office'' is a mockumentary sitcom created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, first made in the United Kingdom, then Germany, and subsequently the United States. It has since been remade in ten other countries. The original ser ...

," which is set in Scranton.

Preserved Dickson locomotives

The following locomotives (in serial number order) built by Dickson have been preserved.Sunshine Software,
Steam Locomotive Information
'. Retrieved October 30, 2005. This surviving locomotive, named "Stephanie", was restored to operating condition, in 1979 under a lease deal, by Winson George, of Brookhaven, MS. He operated the locomotive in his backyard until his death in October 1993, at which time the locomotive was returned to its owners. One notable change to the locomotive was the larger water tank on the extended frame. The restored locomotive Serial # 30196 is displayed at the "Monumento al minero en Las Juntas de Abangare" (Parque Central), Juntas, Guanacaste, Costa Rica (the serial number 30196 is in the ALCO sequence, not the original Dickson serial number sequence).

References

{{Authority control Defunct locomotive manufacturers of the United States Defunct companies based in Pennsylvania Manufacturing companies based in Pennsylvania Scranton, Pennsylvania American companies established in 1856 Manufacturing companies established in 1856 Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1901 1856 establishments in Pennsylvania 1901 disestablishments in Pennsylvania 1901 mergers and acquisitions