Product Details
Martin Company
Certificate Type
Common Stock
Date Issued
November 14, 1957
Canceled
Yes
Printer
American Bank Note Company
Signatures
Machine printed
Approximate Size
12" (w) by 8" (h)
Additional Details
NA
Historical Context
Glenn L. Martin Company was founded by aviation pioneer Glenn Luther Martin on August 16, 1912. Martin started building military trainers in Santa Ana, California, and in 1916, Martin accepted a merger offer from the Wright Company, creating the Wright-Martin Aircraft Company in September. This new company did not go well, and Glenn Martin left to form a second Glenn L. Martin Company on September 10, 1917; it was based in Cleveland, Ohio. Later, its headquarters would be moved to Baltimore, Maryland.
Mexican Revolution
In 1913 Mexican insurgents from the northwestern state of Sonora bought a single seater Martin Pusher biplane in Los Angeles with the intention of attacking federal naval forces attacking the port of Guaymas. The aircraft was shipped on May 5, 1913 in five crates to Tucson, Arizona via Wells Fargo Express, and then moved through the border into Mexico to the town of Naco, Sonora. The aircraft, named "Sonora" by the insurgents, was reassembled there and fitted with a second seat for a bomber position.
The "Sonora", armed with rudimentary 3-inch pipe bombs, performed the first known air to naval bombing runs in history.
World War I
Glenn Martin TT with sergeant Broeckhuysen of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Air Force seated in the middle with factory mechanics (1917).
For the Dutch East Indies a number of planes were delivered, with the first flight on November 6, 1915. It involved 2 types TE, 6 types TT and 8 types R. Martin's first big success came during World War I with the MB-1 bomber, a large biplane design ordered by the United States Army on January 17, 1918. The MB-1 entered service after the end of hostilities. A follow-up design, the MB-2, proved successful; 20 were ordered by the Army Air Service, the first five of them under the company designation and the last 15 as the NBS-1 (Night Bomber, Short range). Although the War Department ordered 110 more, it retained the ownership rights of the design, and put the order out for bid. The production orders were given to other companies that had bid lower, Curtiss, L.W.F. Engineering, and Aeromarine. The design was the only standard bomber used by the Air Service until 1930, and was used by seven squadrons of the Air Service/Air Corps: four in Virginia, two in Hawaii, and one in the Philippines.
Inter-War Years
In 1924 the Martin Company underbid Curtiss for the production of a Curtiss-designed scout bomber, the SC-1, and ultimately Martin produced 404 of these. In 1929 Martin sold the Cleveland plant and built a new one in Middle River, Maryland, northeast of Baltimore.
During the 1930s, Martin built flying boats for the U.S. Navy, and the innovative Martin B-10 bomber for the Army. The Martin Company also produced the noted China Clipper flying boats used by Pan American Airways for its transpacific San Francisco to the Philippines route.
World War II
During World War II, a few of Martin's most successful designs were the B-26 Marauder and A-22 Maryland bombers, the PBM Mariner and JRM Mars flying boats, widely used for air-sea rescue, anti-submarine warfare and transport. The 1941 Office for Emergency Management film Bomber was filmed in the Martin facility in Baltimore, and showed aspects of the production of the B-26.
The Martin Company built a total of 531 Boeing B-29 Superfortresses and 1,585 B-26 Marauders at its Omaha, Nebraska, plant at Offutt Field. Among the B-29s manufactured there were all the Silverplate aircraft, including Enola Gay and Bockscar which dropped the two, war-ending atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
Postwar
On April 22, 1957, the company name was changed to The Martin Company.
Postwar efforts in aeronautics by the Martin Company included two unsuccessful prototype bombers, the XB-48 and the XB-51, the marginally successful AM Mauler, the successful B-57 Canberra tactical bombers, both the P5M Marlin and P6M SeaMaster seaplanes, and the Martin 4-0-4 twin-engine passenger airliner.
The Martin Company then moved into the aerospace manufacturing business. It produced the Vanguard rocket, used by the American space program as one of its first satellite booster rockets as part of Project Vanguard. The Vanguard was the first American space exploration rocket designed from scratch to be an orbital launch vehicle — rather than being a modified sounding rocket (like the Juno I) or a ballistic missile (like the U.S. Army's Redstone missile). Martin also designed and manufactured the huge and heavily armed Titan I and LGM-25C Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). Martin Company of Orlando, Florida, was the prime contractor for the US Army's Pershing missile.
Martin-Marietta was formed in 1961 when the Martin Company merged with the American-Marietta Corporation.
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