MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
Eagle Crusher Company, Inc. — Big company products and engineering backed by the service and support of a 100-year, family owned business BY BRIAN HOOVER
Above: Eagle Crusher Company, Inc. employees proudly standing in front of a closed circuit portable screening plant at their headquarters in Galion, Ohio.
The founder of Eagle Crusher Company, Inc. (Eagle Crusher), C.L. Woods, started out as a distributor of Eagle Tractors in Ohio in the early 1900s. A common practice at this time was to take the cobblestones tilled from farm fields and put them along the side of local dirt roads. Woods had a vision of creating a small jaw crusher mounted on the front of a tractor that could crush the stone and then use it for road material. Eagle Tractor was not interested and so Woods decided in 1915 to go out on his own and form Eagle Crusher in Kenton, Ohio to begin manufacturing his imagined jaw crusher design. Woods continued to innovate and expand on his crusher patent and eventually sold 25 percent of the company to Ralph Cobey to aid in growth and expansion. Cobey purchased the remaining 20
75 percent when Woods retired in 1952, and the operations were then moved to Galion, Ohio. Things began to take off in the 1960s, with Eagle Crusher winning numerous contracts for portable jaw crusher plants, including a very large order from the U.S. Military for hundreds of units during the Vietnam War. It was during this period that Eagle Crusher was sold to Harsco Corp., but when it was clear that commercial sales were being ignored, Cobey purchased the company back in 1970 and essentially hit the restart button at that point. The company began anew with just two employees and slowly began to grow under Cobey’s revitalized leadership and vision. Susanne Cobey became Eagle Crusher’s 10th employee in 1974, and with her assistance, the company continued to grow at a
determined, steady pace. The 70s and 80s would bring more growth with the acquisition of Austin-Western Crushers and Diamond Iron Works crushers. The focus at this time was on aggregate and coal crushers until a coal strike in 1983 caused a virtual sales drought. A new direction was necessary, and Cobey found that by answering the call for jaw crushers that can process asphalt and concrete materials. This need was met through the manufacturing of horizontal shaft impactors, and in 1984, Eagle Crusher built its first crusher to serve the asphalt and concrete recycling markets. Mr. Cobey eventually retired from day-to-day operations in 1990 and one of the first duties Susanne Cobey would do as the company president, would be to acquire Stedman Machine Company in
California Asphalt Magazine • 2017 Equipment Issue