SCOT FORGE HISTORY
From Then to Now
From Humble Beginnings
Scot Forge started from humble beginnings with four brothers, looking for a better future, who traveled from the Shetland Islands in Scotland to America. They found their success in the steel industry and opened a small, six-man hammer forge shop in Chicago in 1893, under the name A. Kropp Forge.
The Chicago area was booming in the 1890s, but by mid-decade a financial panic overtook the nation and in 1914, the company was bought by a group of Ryerson employees and renamed Kruse Forgings. Then, two years later, the name was changed to Atlas Forge partly as a marketing endeavor so the company would be first in the phonebook - listing are alphabetical - and by 1919, Atlas Forge moved to Cicero, Illinois.
More than 60 years later a new greenfield manufacturing plant was built in Clinton, Wisconsin. This unusual plant location was due to the Cicero plant growth being hindered by a stationary noise law in Illinois. At this point, in 1977, the company name would change again to Scot Forge and a Scottish highlander became part of the corporate logo. Along with the new name came a unique sales promotional tool - the wearing of tartan apparel by the personnel.
Continued growth created a need for a third manufacturing plant to be built in Spring Grove, Illinois, which became the permanent headquarters for Scot Forge. Additionally, in 1978 the owning family decided to sell the company to the Scot Forge employees starting the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP).
The company continued to grow from 1985 to 1997. The Cicero plant moved to Franklin Park, Illinois, and Scot Forge formed two partnerships that turned into join ventures - Ringmasters and North American Forgemasters (NAF).
Today, Scot Forge operates with more than 1.3 million sq.ft. of manufacturing space between the five plants and we ship more than 250 million Ibs. of forgings annually. We are proud to be a 100% employee owned manufacturer of custom, open die forgings and seamless rolled rings.
Scot Forge
Through The Years
In 1893, The A. Kropp Forge Company was little more than a blacksmith shop, where workers performed all tasks by hand. The Chicago area was booming in the 1890s, but by mid-decade a financial panic overtook the nation.
Business did not recover until the outbreak of World War II. Demand continued after the war and into the Korean War in the early 1950s. This photo shows one of the large hammers placed into service.
Prior to the use of modern, mobile manipulators and hydraulic presses, forging work was done by hand, with spider-like manual manipulating tools. This picture taken of Scot Forge employees in the Cicero Plant, shows that workers had to be strong, hardy and filled with stamina to handle the demands of the physical labor.
The addition of this 8,000 lb. hammer with the innovative rotator allowed Scot Forge to enter the forged round bar market with the steel service centers.
Plant and office staff pose for this 1948 photo. A. Kropp and Company had been incorporated as the Kruse Forgings company in 1914 and the name was changed to Atlas Forging Company in 1916. It wouldn't be known as Scot Forge Company until 1978, coinciding with the institution of the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP).
Scot Forge
Why Plaid?
Well, as it turns out, Pete "Spike" Georgeson ordered one tartan jacket to help him get noticed at a luncheon... and it worked! So well in fact, that he decided he needed to order a couple more jackets, so he asked for a swatch of every tartan to decide what to order. Somewhere along the line, the tailor thought he said one jacket in every tartan. Rather than returning all of the jackets Pete decided to give them to his sales team and the rest is history.
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About Scot Forge
Here are the top reasons why Scot Forge employee-owners choose to build their careers with us.