The Atlantic Foundry Company was an

Akron, Ohio Akron () is a city in Summit County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Ohio, fifth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 190,469 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Akron metr ...

-based

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

casting Casting is a manufacturing process in which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is also known as a casting, which is ejected or ...

manufacturer that operated from 1905 to 1989. The company was founded by Charles Reymann Sr., an immigrant from Alsace-Lorraine, along with 4 fellow foundrymen, Ewald Erickson, Emil Krill, Fred Spalding, and Phillip Willenbacker, who had crossed the Atlantic Ocean when they migrated to America and named their new business The Atlantic Foundry. To meet the growing demand for iron, in 1910 they built a modern iron foundry at 182 Beaver Street and in 1919 they added a huge steel foundry at the same site and began a steel casting business. By this time Erickson and Krill had sold their interest to Reymann and he eventually became the President of the company, and the company was privately owned and operated by the Reymann family until its closing. At its peak, the company employed 450 people, including its It operated its own

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. The company also created a division called Akron Mattress Co., which was later sold in the late 1960s to a private concern that became Schubert Industries Inc. Atlantic Foundry closed on January 13, 1989. Thomas Reymann, the company's final president, said the manufacturing plant had not been profitable during its final six years. The

Ohio Employee Ownership Center The Ohio Employee Ownership Center (OEOC) is an organization based at Kent State University which provides employees of businesses in Ohio with resources for establishing Employee Share Ownership Plans through worker buyouts of companies. The organ ...

(OEOC), a non-profit program affiliated with

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,"About the OEOC," Kent State University
attempted to work with the foundry's employees to purchase the company from the Reymann family under the terms of an

employee stock ownership plan Employee stock ownership, or employee share ownership, is where a company's employees own shares in that company (or in the parent company of a group of companies). US employees typically acquire shares through a share option plan. In the UK, Emp ...

(ESOP). However, a lawsuit brought by 125 foundry retirees seeking the resumption of health and life insurance benefits derailed the ESOP negotiations.

References

Companies based in Akron, Ohio {{Manufacturing-stub