Bucyrus-Erie

Bucyrus International, Inc.
Subsidiary of Caterpillar Inc.
Industry Machinery manufacturing
Fate Purchased by Caterpillar Inc.
Predecessor
  • Bucyrus Foundry and Manufacturing Company (1880–1893)
  • Bucyrus Steam Shovel and Dredge Company of Wisconsin (1893–1895)
  • The Bucyrus Company (1895–1911)
  • Bucyrus Company (1911–1927)
  • Bucyrus-Erie Company (1927–1996)
Founded Bucyrus, Ohio, United States (1880 (1880))
Founder Daniel P. Eells et al.
Defunct July 2011
Headquarters South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States
Area served
 Worldwide
Products
  • 8750 Dragline
  • RH400 Hydraulic Excavator
  • MT6300AC Mining Truck
Services Maintenance
Website www.bucyrus.com
Footnotes / references
[1][2][3][4][5][6]

Bucyrus-Erie was an American surface and underground mining equipment company. It was founded as Bucyrus Foundry and Manufacturing Company in Bucyrus, Ohio in 1880. Bucyrus moved its headquarters to South Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1893. In 1927, Bucyrus merged with the Erie Steam Shovel Company to form Bucyrus-Erie.

Renamed Bucyrus International, Inc. in 1997, it was purchased by Caterpillar Inc. in a US$8.8 billion transaction that closed on July 8, 2011. At the time of its acquisition, the Bucyrus product line included a range of material removal and material handling products used in both surface and underground mining.

History

1880-1927

Bucyrus was an early producer of steam shovels, operating from its Bucyrus, Ohio headquarters and manufacturing facility. In 1893, Bucyrus moved its operations to South Milwaukee, Wisconsin.[7]

A Bucyrus steam shovel working in the Panama Canal

In 1904 Bucyrus supplied 77 of the 102 steam shovels used to dig the Panama Canal.[8] These were ninety-five-ton models with five-cubic-yard buckets that could move approximately eight tons of material at once. They were operated by a crew of four. Similar to a locomotive, the crew was headed by a engineer, and included two firemen who stoked the boiler with coal, and a craneman. A support crew on the ground of six men extended the rails on which the shovel moved as the digging progressed. A famous photograph of President Theodore Roosevelt was taken in November 1906 operating a Bucyrus shovel in Panama during his inspection trip to the canal. In March 1910, a single Bucyrus shovel excavated 70,000 cubic yards over twenty-six consecutive days at the Culebra cut, setting a canal construction record. Each shovel averaged more than 1,000,000 cubic yards of earth excavated at the cut.[9]

Theodore Roosevelt on a Bucyrus shovel in the Panama Canal in 1906

1927-1980

The company changed its name to Bucyrus-Erie in 1927 when it merged with the Erie Steam Shovel Company, the country's leading manufacturer of small excavators at that time.

In 1930 Bucyrus joined with the English firm of Ruston & Hornsby Ltd Lincoln, England, to form the Ruston-Bucyrus Ltd firm in England. Ruston & Hornsby Ltd were the pre-eminent manufactures of steam excavators at the time, having started in 1874; the merger gave the company access to previously unavailable world markets.

1980-2011

Ruston & Hornsby Ltd sold their share in Ruston-Bucyrus in 1985, during a period of recession and consolidation in the mining industry, as they divested themselves of non-core businesses to survive.

For a time in the 1980s the company was known as Becor Western following its merger with Western Gear.

On February 22, 1993, Bucyrus-Erie filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and remained under bankruptcy protection until December 14, 1994.[10]

The company took its current name, Bucyrus International, Inc. in 1997.

Bucyrus built hundreds of large mining machines, as well as construction equipment, in an intense competition against competitor Marion Power Shovel. Bucyrus acquired Marion Power Shovel in 1997.

On May 4, 2007, Bucyrus completed the acquisition of the DBT Group, a Lunen, Germany based manufacturer of underground mining equipment, from RAG Coal International AG of Herne, Germany. Bucyrus acquired DBT because DBT's underground mining equipment complemented Bucyrus' surface mining products.

In February 2010, Bucyrus International completed a US $1.3 billion acquisition of the mining equipment division of Terex Corporation.[11]

On November 15, 2010, Bucyrus agreed to be acquired by Caterpillar in a transaction valued at US$8.6 billion. Caterpillar said it intended to create a new mining business headquarters at the former Bucyrus headquarters location in South Milwaukee. The transaction closed in mid-2011.[12]

The Intellectual Property Rights for Bucyrus Erie cranes was acquired by Sparrows Group, who have crane manufacturing based in Houston, Texas [13]

Products

Bucyrus owned the Bucyrus, Bucyrus-Erie, Marion, and Ransomes & Rapier brands and provided OEM parts and support services for machinery which bears those brands.[14]

Historical

Management

Well known as a national and international concern,[16] Bucyrus was noted for the long service of many of its employees.

References

  1. ↑ Syncrude Newsletter 2006, p. 1.
  2. ↑ Bucyrus 2009, p. 4.
  3. ↑ Bucyrus 2009, p. 59.
  4. ↑ Bucyrus 2010, p. 21.
  5. ↑ Bucyrus 2005, p. 1.
  6. ↑ Bucyrus 2011, pp. 1-4.
  7. ↑ Bogue 1985, p. 150.
  8. ↑ Bucyrus & timeline.
  9. ↑ McCullough, David (1977). The Path Between the Seas, The Creation of the Panama Canal: 1870-1914. Simon & Schuster.
  10. ↑ Bucyrus-Erie 1994.
  11. ↑ "Bucyrus Completes Acquisition of Mining Business of Terex". bucyrus.com. Bucyrus International Inc. 2010-02-19. Archived from the original on 2010-03-01. Retrieved 2010-03-01. Bucyrus International, Inc. ...announced today that it has completed its acquisition of the mining equipment business of Terex Corporation.
  12. ↑ Caterpillar 2010.
  13. ↑ http://sparrowsgroup.com/services_and_technology/manufacturing/
  14. ↑ Bucyrus 2010a.
  15. ↑ Furek, M.W. Sheppton: The Myth, Miracle & Music. CreateSpace, 2015
  16. ↑ Bogue 1985, p. 151.

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