McNally - International Corporation
Headquarters in Pittsburg
By Ted Crawford
The McNally Pittsburg Manufacturing
Corp. has its roots in a small boiler shop that was opened
only 13 years after the city of Pittsburg was founded
and it is one of the industries that enabled the community
to evolve from a mining camp to become a Southeast Kansas
Industrial Center. And the firm itself during those years
grew tremendously, expanding its operations onto the
international scene while continuing Pittsburg as its
home base.
In 1889 a boilermaker named Thomas J.
McNally established a shop in a 40 x 80 building on West
Third St. [The building was located north of the
Frisco tracks on the east side of Olive and south of
Third Street, on land was donated to Thomas McNally by
the Commercial Club of Pittsburg, who had been invited
to come to town from Ashland, Wisconsin to set up a business
in great need due to the growing coal mining. The Commercial
Club was the predecessor to the Chamber of Commerce which
was organized in 1911.] His skill was badly needed
by local coal mines because all used steam engines. He
soon expanded into general repairs and machining. With
new mines opening and established mines expanding, those
were busy years.
When his son. Thomas J. McNally Jr.
assumed responsibility for the shop in 1906, he decided
to look for opportunities for further expansion. This
basic idea, "To look for Opportunity," remained
as a guide from that time on. By the time Thomas McNall
retired from day-to-day control of McNally Pittsburg
in 1955 the company was known around the world, wherever
coal was mined. Equipment and complete coal plants originating
in Pittsburg can be found in the United States and Canada,
Central and South America, Europe and Asia, the Near
East, Africa, Australia and the Far East. In fact, the
only continent missed is Antartica.
When the founder's
grandson, Edward T. McNally, succeeded his father as
president in 1955 the company had an international reputation.
However, coal production. was declining in the United
States, limiting the demand for new plants. Therefore
the company looked for opportunities to which it could
apply its engineering and manufacturing skills in other
fields. The search resulted in new expansion. As a result
the McNally manufacturing complex in Pittsburg grew to
a total of 300,000 square feet, a far cry from the 40x80
boiler shop of 1889.
EXPANSION & DIVERSIFICATION
Complete service to the coal industry
remains a major activity of McNally Pittsburg. Over the
years it buflt an outstanding reputation for building
quality machinery and efficient plants. It expanded facilities
in Pittsburg. It purchased a manufacturing plant in Wellston
, Ohio to better serve eastern coal fields.
This expansion
was needed but was not sufficient, when management surveyed
the situation in 1955. Additional fields of endeavor
were needed. Sensing an opportunity in the hard rock
and mineral field, McNally bought a manufacturing plant
in Danville, Pa. with long experience in the stone industry.
A major venture was undertaken in India. There, in association
with local financiers, a brand new manufacturing plant
was built to serve the growing Indian industry.
These
major steps expanded capacity and reached new markets.
Additional diversification was made by designing and
constructing a wide range ot specialized heavy equipment.
The company started manufacturing such items as giant
tire molds, coke plant machinery, dredging equipment,
oversize water valves for irrigation lines, dam gates
and dam gate hoists.
Supplementing its manufacturing capacities,
McNally engineers were ready to go to the customer to
solve his problems. In short, when something mechanical
was needed the company was ready, willing and able to
lend technical help. It constantly tried to do more and
to do it better than somebody else. All this activity
was spurred by the idea voiced by Thomas McNally, "Look
for Opportunity."
COAL EQUIPMENT PARAMOUNT
When Thomas J. McNally Jr. took over
the Pittsburg Boiler & Machine Co. in 1906 the coal
field necessarily occupied all of his attention. The
Pittsburg coal area was growing. The coal operators were
expanding. Therefore Thomas McNally decided to give them
all the help he could and thereby grow beyond day-to-day
repair work.
The company started building coal tipples.
Following common practice these were made of wood; and
they were not long lived. Therefore, in 1921 McNally
designed and erected the first all steel tipple in the
Pittsburg coal field, for the Sheridan Coal Co. It proved
so efficient and attracted so much favorable comment
that the steel tipple became standard in the area.
In
simple terms, a tipple crushed the larger sizes of mine
run coal and then screened it to commercially salable
sizes.
Since coal crushers were needed in every
plant, the boiler works designed and built its own crusher.
This first unit began the development of a wide family
of coal crushers that became standard wherever coal was
mined.
In addition the company decided to develop
other equipment such as elevators, screens, conveyors,
loading booms, picking tables and heavy duty gear drives.
In a relatively few years McNally was able to offer coal
operators a complete plant designed and erected and fully
equipped with McNally machinery. This new capacity enabled
the company to extend its operation into other coal fields.
In a true sense, expansion never stopped.
COAL WASHER DEVELOPMENT
Introduction of machine mining underground
and shovels in pits caused more "dirt" to be
included in the mine run coal delivered to the processbig
plant. A better cleaning process was needed.
This problem
interested Thomas McNally, so he investigated several
new ideas for automatic cleaning of mine run coal. He
purchased a plunger type coal washer and installed it
in a coal plant in 1929. Experience with this unit impelled
him to look further and to investigate washing equipment
made in Europe and England.
This search finally lead to
a patent arrangement with Bertram Norton, an English
engineer. The Norton washer was a superior machine using
air for the pulsing cycle and an automatic discharge
control.
Previously mentioned was the fact that
the coal tipple simply crushed and screened coal. Any
cleaning done was manual, with men and boys throwing
rock off the picking table.
The coal washer offered a
vastly superior method, at lower cost, with heavier tonnages
and controlled quality of good coal. By floating run
of mine coal through a pulsating bath of water, the heavier
dirt, stone and pyrites sank, while the lighter coal
floated to the top. There was a constantly moving layer
of coal drawn off the top, with the heavier unburnables
discharged from the bottom.
The first McNally Norton coal
washer built in Pittsburg was put into service in Terre
Haute, Ind. in 1932. It was a success. It proved to the
coal industry that it could profit from this coal cleaning
method.
With this unit McNally Pittsburg stepped
up its pace. An experienced coal cleaning engineer, C.H.J.
Patterson, joined the staff. Improvements in efficiency
and size of the McNally Norton washer were constant,
decade by decade. Machine capacity rose for 100 to 1300
tons per hour, with accurate control of clean coal recovery.
The
first coal cleaning plants used but one McNally Norton
washer. However, when coal operators entered extremely
critical markets and needed better control, McNally engineers
designed a system using two washers in tandem. This allowed
exceptionally close control of ash (the general term
for unburnable material). The tandem system also offered
dividends in maximum production of clean coal.
Most plants
were geared to capacities of several hundred tons. Some
plants built processed 3,000 tons per hour. However,
McNally engineers did not neglect the small operator.
For him they designed the McNally Norton Unit Washer,
a complete coal plant in one unit of equipment.
SPECIALIZED COAL CLEANING
The McNally Norton washer revolutinized
coal cleaning. But the company management never closed
its eyes to other ideas. Because of this viewpoint, investigations
into other systems never stopped. Two types of equipment
offered usefulness and were adopted.
One was the McNally
Rheolaveur washer, which used the action of water flowing
through troughs to separate extremely fine coal from
fine ash. It was an extra step in the washing plant,
following the McNally Norton equipment. Another process
was secured from a Dutch inventor. It is the McNally
Tromp Dense Media Washer, used to clean extremely difficult
coals.
McNally's also added over the years
an important group of subsidiary equipment. It includes
mechanical and thermal coal dryers, gigantic loading
silos, car movers and car dumpers, and loading booms
for both railroad cars and ships.
In fact, whatever, the
problem or whatever the size, McNally Pittsburg proved
that it can build and equip a coal preparation plant
that is efficient. And since their own engineers start
up each new plant and stay on the job until it is running
properly, the coal operator knows he will get his money's
worth from McNally Pittsburg. - Pittsburg Almanac
1876 -1976, pp 223-224
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