By Thomas Berry
Title: The Browning Engineering Company - Victor R. Browning Company - Browning Crane & Shovel - Browning C, c. 1921 and n. d.
ID: 1/101/3
Creator: Browning Engineering Co., The - Victor R. Browning Company (18##-1992?)
Extent: 5.0 Items
Languages: English
Very little is known about the history of this company. The book, Men of Ohio in 1900, viewable online in one of the links below, states that Victor R. Browning was a Vice-President of The Browning Engineering Company in 1900. Another article dates Victor R. Browning’s founding to 1926.
At various stages of its life, it was based in Willoughby, Ohio, in a former brick manufacturing plant, and in Cleveland, Ohio. It also had a factory at Mansfield, Ohio. It had at least five names, as documented in the Archives: The Browning Company; The Browning Crane Company; The Browning Crane & Shovel Company; The Browning Engineering Company; and The Victor R. Browning Company.
The company began manufacturing electric cranes c. 1899, and continued to expand their crane business until the late 1920s. Either American Clay Machinery Company (Collection 2374) or its steam shovel line was acquired by Victor R. Browning Company.
The Ohio Locomotive Crane Company (Collection 1125) apparently purchased part or all of Browning’s locomotive crane operations, as evidenced by two copies of an unnumbered, undated foldout poster titled Check These Facts with your Locomotive Crane Crew, found in the Donald W. Frantz Collection; otherwise identical, one was published by Browning, and the other by Ohio.
Browning was still manufacturing overhead cranes in Willoughby when, in August 1990, it sold out to Kranco, Inc. of Houston, Texas, to avoid liquidation. Another citation states that it remained open until 1992.
An attempt to date records is made by identifying the company name and plant locations cited on each document.
Access Restrictions: There are no restrictions on this collection.
Physical Access Note: Most records in this collection are in poor physical condition.
Acquisition Method:
This is an artificial collection comprised of records from multiple accessions. Initial records in this collection were donated by Harry Young II, who collected them from the former Browning Manufacturing offices in Willoughby, Ohio between c. 1970 and c. 1993. Additional records have been added from:
• Donald W. Frantz Collection, Accession 2005-0150 (received Dec 31, 2005). Filed with his collection per his request.
