Product Details

Historical Context

This company’s roots date to 1919 when Willard F. Rockwell, a young engineer, left a job at the Torbensen Axle Company, because the company rejected Rockwell’s ideas for improving their axles. That year, Rockwell arrived in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where he bought and reorganized the Hays Machinery Company, a bankrupt woodworking machinery plant.

Rockwell renamed the company the Wisconsin Parts Company, and began production of the “double reduction” axles that had failed to catch on at Torbensen. The design became an industry standard and served as the base for what, in time, became one of the largest corporations in the United States.

After an unsuccessful attempt by Torbensen to copy the design in the late 1920s, the company was purchased by Timkin-Detroit Axle and renamed Wisconsin Axle Company. The name, in some circles, became as recognizably Oshkosh as OshKosh B’Gosh.

Rockwell became president of Timken-Detroit four years later and in 1936 was asked to take over a failing automotive parts firm — Standard Steel Spring. The move started several decades of diversification through new product development and acquisition.

In 1953, Rockwell became chairman of a merged company that was renamed Rockwell Spring and Axle Co. Five years later the company was again operating under a new name: Rockwell Standard.

In 1967, a merger with North American Rockwell created what became Rockwell International.

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