Olver Chilled Plow
In
the 1868 James Oliver organized the South Bend Iron Works, (also known as the
Oliver Chilled Plow Company and several other names over the years.) It started
in the West Race but by 1876 had become so large that it needed more space and
located on 
Chapin
Street between Indiana Avenue and Sample Street. (Part of the reason that he
needed more space was because he bought all of the scrap iron columns from the
buildings that had burned in the great Chicago Fire of 1871. He brought them
all to South Bend, melted them down and recast them as the iron parts for the
Singer sewing machine cabinets.) His industry quickly
grew and he needed many immigrant workers to make plows. Most of the workers
were Polish, Belgian and Swedish. After many years of steady sales, increased
competition and outdated factory buildings began to cause financial problems
and the company was bought out by White Farm Equipment. The company closed in
the 1970's.
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