Winton Engine Company

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This page was last updated on January 17, 2025.

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Overview

The following comes from the August 16, 1928 issue of the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper.

Winton, Henderson & Brown -- A business partnership of two men sometimes lasts out a generation, but when three manage to team themselves successfully for 30 years or more in changing lines of industry their relationship becomes a phenomenon.

George H. Brown and Thomas H. Henderson are retiring from the Winton Engine Co., leaving Alexander Winton there alone of the group which worked together to bring out the old Winton motor carriage during the Spanish-American war [in 1898]. The engine business is derived directly from the manufacture of the automobile which passed out a few years ago and indirectly from the bicycle business the three were in together before they attempted the automobile.

Winton, Brown and Henderson started out together in manufacturing about 1892 and Henderson was at one time president of the old Winton Bicycle Co. Brown was secretary-treasurer of the bicycle business several years and ran its retail department on the side. Then in 1898 the three organized to build the machine that Winton had been running up and down on Perkins Avenue. In allusion to their long business and personal association Brown named one of his sons Winton Henderson.

"Winton is accredited with having sold the first workable automobile ever manufactured and was the founder of the old Winton Bicycle Co. and the Winton Motor Carriage Co., which made and marketed his early automobile. These companies were succeeded by the Winton Motor Car Co. and the Winton Engine Co. the latter of which was recently taken over by the General Motors Corp." (Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 4, 1930; description of the company on the occasion of Winton, age 70, divorcing his third wife, an opera singer, age 30. Winton married a fourth wife, age 47, on September 2, 1930)

June 21, 1932
Alexander Winton died at age 72. The following excerpts come from his obituary in the June 23, 1932 issue of the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper.

The "Winton Six" was a high grade standard of the highways years ago. While there may be some dispute as to who has the honor of contriving the first automobile, there is none as to who made the first one that was sold. It was Mr. Winton.

His old "one-lunger" sold in 1898 to Robert Allison, a Pennsylvania mining engineer for $1 000, was made at the corner of old Mason and Belden Streets, now E 45th Street and Perkins Avenue N. E. Years later the old car was bought back to exhibit in the Winton factory at 10601 Berea Road N W and now is kept at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

Mr. Winton came here from Scotland a penniless boy of nineteen, worked in the shipyards and in the Phoenix Iron Works, saved his money and started a bicycle manufacturing shop, cycling being the fashionable rage of the early brave 1890s. At the height of this business the Winton Bicycle Co. was turning out 25 to 50 "ladies' and gents' bikes" a week.

About the same time that Henry Ford, Elwood Haynes and other famous pioneers began tinkering with horseless carriages, Mr. Winton's mechanical genius was attracted by the same idea.

Mr. Winton stuck to the manufacture of high grade cars and the "Winton Six" became a synonym for motor luxury. When Ford and others came out with a low priced car, the Wintons began to lose ground and in 1924 production was suspended. Mr. Winton estimated that at that time he had lost about $5,000,000 of the millions the first cars made him.

The Winton Engine Co., manufacturing chiefly marine engines, was organized as a side industry about 1912 and gradually came to be more profitable than the parent company.

Timeline

March 22, 1902
Winton Automobile Co. announced that the company would build a new plant on 12 acres in the vicinity of Brea Road and West Madison Avenue. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 22, 1902) [This was the site at 2116 W. 106th Street]

September 7, 1902
Winton Automobile Company announced that they would build a brick four-story sales office and warehouse in downtown Cleveland near the intersection of Euclid Avenue and East Huron Road, near East 14th Street. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 7, 1902; September 28, 1902)

March 20, 1903
The Winton automobile factory "on Brea Road" was the largest automobile factory in the U. S., and was second only in the world to a factory in France. It was to be expanded from its present 172,000 square feet, to 500,000 square feet, all under one roof. The present capacity was to produce seven autos per day. The expansion would allow production of 21 autos. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 20, 1903)

1912
"In 1912, Winton started producing diesel engines for stationary and marine use, and gasoline engines for heavy vehicles, independent of Winton's automobile production. The subsidiary Winton Engine Company remained successful while Winton's automotive sales went into decline, and would outlive the Winton Motor Carriage Company." (Wikipedia)

(Read the Wikipedia article about the Winton Motor Carriage Company)

February 4, 1912
"Contract for New Factory. - Contracts have been awarded to J. W. Christford for a factory building to be erected on W. 106th Street for the Winton Gas Engine & Manufacturing Co. Plans have been prepared for a one-story, brick and steel frame building, 80 by 300 feet in dimensions, with cement and maple floors, electric lights, steam heat and a composition roof." (Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 4, 1912)

April 8, 1913
"Engine Company Expands. - A deed for nine acres at Madison Avenue N.W. and W. 106th Street, was filed for record yesterday by the Winton Gas Engine Co. The land adjoins the company's plant and will be used for increasing its working space. Building of new additions will probably be done next year." (Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 8, 1913)

"Winton Engine Works" were located at 2116 West 106th Street. Also known as "Winton Engine Co." (classified ads in the 1917-1924 period, and again 1928-1929)

(The Winton Engine Works, or Winton Engine Company, were both informal names for the division of the Winton Automobile Company that had been building large gasoline engines for the marine market since 1912, and Diesel engines also for the marine market since 1917. The engine works were co-located within the Winton factory on 106th Street.)

(By the early 1920s, due to competition from other automobile manufacturers, sales of the Winton automobile had sharply declined. The cars from other manufacturers were lighter and less expensive. To save the business, the company was reorganized to separate the large gasoline engine and Diesel engine "divisions," both being used in marine applications, from the automobile "division." The automobile division was shut down and its manufacturing property sold, with the factory itself and machines used to manufacture the engines being retained.)

February 9, 1924
"Manufacture of the Winton automobile is being suspended and the automobile business liquidated." "The Winton engine works, owned by the same company and manufacturing engines of the Diesel type, is not affected by the sale of the Winton automobile assets." The parts inventory, along with all dies, jigs, tools and special machines, was sold on January 21st to General Parts Corporation of Flint, Michigan, which stated that it would maintain the Winton parts business for five years, working out of rented space at the Winton plant on Madison Avenue [north end of 2116 W. 106th Street], until the Winton plant was sold. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 9, 1924)

December 1924
Winton Automobile Company, originally known as the Winton Motor Carriage Company, dating back to 1899, was reorganized in December 1924, and its entire stock purchased by the principal investors and management of the new Winton Gas Engine & Manufacturing Co., also known as Winton Engine Company. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 9, 1925)

(The old Winton Automobile Co. was reorganized as a subsidiary of a new larger Winton Company. The new Winton Engine Company was also organized as a subsidiary of the new Winton Co., and the assets and property of the old company were transferred to the new company on June 6, 1925. The automobile business and its assets were then sold off.)

June 9, 1925
"An evidence of the success that Alexander Winton, pioneer automobile manufacturer, is meeting in his present venture, the development of the Diesel engine, was brought out yesterday in announcement that Mr. Winton and associates had purchased the option on the Winton Engine works at a price to yield old Winton company preferred stockholders approximately $10 a share." "Upon the reorganization of the Winton Co. in December, 1924, all of the assets of the company were transferred to the Winton Engine Co." An option for the new company to purchase the property of the old company was given, and that option was exercised on June 6th. "The purchaser of the option was George Codrington, who has been general manager of the Winton Engine works for some time, acting for himself and Alexander Winton, George H. Brown and Thomas Henderson." (Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 9, 1925)

(In early 1928, a reference was made to the "Winton Marine Engine Co." -- Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 8, 1928)

August 15, 1928
The Winton Engine Company was reorganized with the same name, and Alexander Winton as Chairman of the Board and George Codrington as president. Previously, Winton had been president of the old company and Codrington was vice president. A new board of directors was also named, with members from Cleveland, Chicago and Detroit. The reorganization allowed the stockholders of the old company to sell a portion of their interest in the company. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 15, 1928)

(This may have been when persons who were also officers at General Motors, including Alfred P. Sloan and Charles F. Kettering, began buying stock in the Winton company. These persons had been working with Winton to design and build large gasoline and Diesel engines for their personal yachts, and became impressed by the company itself. This is based on the testimony of Harold Hamilton, of Electro-Motive in the Senate hearings of 1955.)

April 1, 1930
Winton Engine company announced that they would build an addition measuring 55 feet by 135 feet at their plant at 2116 W 106th Street. Work was to begin "at once." (Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 1, 1930)

May 16, 1930
The following excerpts come from the May 16, 1930 issue of the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper.

Winton Engine To Merge With General Motors - Cleveland Company Gets Offer to Exchange Stock - General Motors Corp.'s third invasion of Cleveland is to acquire the Winton Engine Co. a company founded in 1912 by Alexander Winton, pioneer automobile builder who has supplied the United States government in recent years with Diesel propelled rum runners on fresh and salt water.

According to announcement by Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., president of General Motors, the big motor corporation has agreed to give 126,667 shares of General Motors common stock for the assets and property of the Winton Engine Co., 2116 W. 106th Street. This is equal to one and a third shares of General Motors for each share of Winton common.

General Motors owns the huge Fisher Body plant in the northeastern part of the city and two years ago acquired the Guide Motor Lamp Co. on the West Side. Both plants are being operated as they were before being acquired by General Motors and it is believed that Winton will be continued in the same manner.

Out at the Winton plant Diesel-type engines are made that weigh from two and one-half to 80 tons. Many of the cutters used by the government in running down rum runners are supplied with engines made at the Winton Co.

Many engines have been shipped to the coast guard along the Atlantic Coast and also installed in pleasure craft throughout the country. Winton also makes engines used in gas electric railroad motor cars and for various other purposes.

Alexander Winton disposed of his major stock holdings in the company two years ago, he said last night, retaining just enough stock to make him eligible to serve as chairman of the board. He receives royalties on all engines made from his patents and judging from the success the company has had in recent years his royalties must have amounted to considerable.

May 18, 1930
The following comes from the May 18, 1930 issue of the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper.

Winton Engine to Merge. - Announcement that General Motors Corp, had made an offer tn acquire the Winton Engine Co. on a $6,000,000 basis was one of the important developments of the week. The Winton Engine Co. was founded by Alexander Winton, pioneer builder of gasoline automobiles. Winton holds the patents under which Diesel engines are being made at the Cleveland plant and this offer received from the General Motors marks a fitting epoch in the life of this genius who saw his motor company pass into creditors' hands after it had attained high rank among the country's leading passenger cars of the age.

The change to the small car seemed to be Winton's undoing in the motor car field and in 1912 he turned his attention to the development of gasoline engines and the Diesel type of motor.

Success of the Winton Engine Co. has been such as to draw an offer from General Motors to exchange one share of Winton for one and one-third shares of General Motors.

June 4, 1930
Stockholders of the Winton Engine Co. voted to accept GM's offer. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 4, 1930)

June 20, 1930
"On June 20, 1930, Winton Engine Company was sold to General Motors and on June 30 was reorganized as the Winton Engine Corporation subsidiary of General Motors." (Wikipedia)

November 9, 1930
General Motors announced that it had added Electro-Motive company as a subsidiary. The address given for EMC in Cleveland was at 2160 W. 106th Street, the same address as the Winton Engine company. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, November 9, 1930)

In 1938, the Winton Engine Corporation became the Cleveland Diesel Engine Division of General Motors and took over the operation of the former Winton Engine Company plant in Cleveland to engage in production of special large marine Diesel engines.

(All subsequent events concerning Winton are part of the EMD In Cleveland story)

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