Coachbult.com - Sidney Manufacturing Company



Sidney Manufacturing Company - Anderson Body - Beck Bus - Sydney, Ohio 1920s-1930s

The Sidney Manufacturing Company was formed in 1907 with capital stock of $75,000 by leading industrialists Thedieck, Studevant, E.J. Griffis and attorney J. Hess, among others. It made metal seats and bodies for buggies, automobiles and trucks. Production output capacity was from 80,000 to 100,000 seats annually. The organization took possession of the old Maxwell Mill, which was purchased by Thedieck for $17,000. As with the Anderson Body Company, it was located where Shelby Manufacturing now stands on Adams Street.

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I've learned a little history of Beck and thought I would share it.

Beck began life in 1923 as Anderson Body Company in Sidney, Ohio, Anderson itself a reorganization of an earlier failed company, which manufactured, or attempted to, an automobile known as Bimel. The company Anderson Body bought was called Sidney Manufacturing. Gathering experienced employees from Sidney Mfg. and Mutual Wood Work Company, Anderson Body was an immediate success according to local history.

Anderson made bodies ( metal panels fastened to wood frames with nails or screws) for the Dodge Bros mostly, but also for Hudson and Studebaker, but toward the end of the twenties their fortunes foundered, and they had gone from running day and night and producing ten car bodies a day, to barely staying alive as auto manufacturers began making their own bodes. Worse, one of the principals (Bill Quinn) left to form his own company, (Pioneer Body Company - made roadster bodies for Hudson in 1926) on Park Street in Sidney, and competed with them directly for what little business remained.

By 1932, local investor C.D. Beck had taken over the plant and its assets and formed the Beck Bus Company, producing buses and fire trucks. It was in fact Beck who finished the last Ahrens-Fox Fire Engines. "By 1953, the company was awash in red ink, and C.D. Beck & Company of Sidney, Ohio (manufacturer of intercity buses) was contracted to build the final 25 Ahrens-Fox fire engines then on order. The very last fire engine built by Ahrens-Fox personnel in Ahrens-Fox's own factory, before the Beck sub-contract took effect, was delivered on Christmas Eve, 1953, to Volunteer Fire Company #1 of New Milford, NJ."

Beck eventually moved his company to a sight on Russel Road in Sidney, where CompAir Leroi is now located.

Mack Trucks acquired C.D. Beck Company in 1956.

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I HAVE SOME GOOD NEWS FOR YOU ON ADVICE AS TO ANDERSON AND PIONEER. I HAVE
TALKED BY PHONE TO A GENTLEMAN (95 YEARS OLD)
THAT WORKED FOR THE PIONEER BODY COMPANY. HE WAS THERE IN THE LATE 20'S.HE
WORKED WITH ONE OF THE CO OWNER'S ( BILL QUINN).
HE SAID THAT BILL QUINN ALSO BOUGHT INTO ANDERSON IN THE TIME- JUST BEFORE
THE DEMISE OF ANDERSON.
HIS DUTIES WERE TO TRAVEL SEVERAL STATES AND SELL THE CAR TO AS MANY DEALERS
AS HE COULD. THEY HAD SOME SUCCESS AND SOME GREAT FUN AND STORIES TO TELL.
I HAVE HIS ADDRESS AND PHONE NUMBER . HE IS IN FLORIDA AT THIS TIME. BETTER
CALL SOON-- AS HE SAID-- HE IS NOT GETTING ANY YOUNGER. AT 95. HE WAS A
PLEASURE TO TALK WITH AND DID NOT MIND MY CALL. HE WAS GLAD TO HEAR SOMEONE
REMEMBERED THE PIONEER BODY COMPANY.