SVM_Business Journal_Winter 2021

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From sheer millpower to the industries that grew out of it, the Sauk Valley’s story Is one of steel and strength, and though the industry has changed through the years, the men and women who’ve mastered the metal are still going strong

inside Publisher/Ad Director Jennifer Heintzelman Magazine editor & Page design Rusty Schrader Published by Sauk Valley Media 113 S. Peoria Ave. Dixon, IL 61021 815-284-2222 Have a story idea for Sauk Valley Business Journal? Let us know ...

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3 Memories steel linger on

Memories of a time when the Sauk Valley had a big role — and roll — in the steel industry can still be found.

6 Finding its bearings

Frantz Manufacturing has seen a lot of changes through the years, but its commitment to roll with those changes has helped it find continued success as one of Sterling’s longest lasting companies.

11 Allies in excellence

Everyone at Allied-Locke has a key role in making the company an important link in the world’s industrial supply chain — but the real star of the show? Quality.

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By Cody Cutter | Sauk Valley Media

t’s hard to imagine life without steel. From the cars we drive to the keys that start them, from the tiniest ball bearing to the tallest skyscraper, steel is everywhere.

It’s also hard to imagine the Sauk Valley without the steel industry. It’s is in our blood, like molten steel coursing through our veins. Blast furnaces stoked by steelworkers pumped life into our communities. Man and machine.

Steel turned Sterling into “The Hardware Capital of the World,” and provided a way of life for countless workers through the years. In Rock Falls and Dixon, factories were born from steel. Today, many of those local factories are gone: National Manufacturing, Lawrence Brothers, Keystone Manufacturing, International Harvester. When Northwestern Steel and Wire closed its doors, it was the end of an era — but it was also the beginning of a new one.

Companies with nerves of steel in a challenging industry and an ability to evolve have helped local factories weather changing times and trends as they continue to employ men and women of steel.

A few of them are profiled in this magazine, but there are many others. Raynor Garage Door and Bonnell Industries in Dixon, Champion Chisel in Rock Falls, Vegter Steel Manufacturing in Morrison, Wahl Clipper in Sterling, Woods in Oregon, just to name some of them. They may not be turning molten metal into steel beams, but they’re turning steel into a profit. In short: Steel is still alive and well in the Sauk Valley.

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STEEL cont’d from page 3 Elsewhere in the Sauk Valley memories of a time when the area had a big role — and roll — in the steel industry can still be found. In Sterling, parts of the former Northwestern Steel and Wire have found new life, but in Hennepin, the former steel mill there is just a memory — though the 800-plus acres it once stood on now stands ready to welcome any prospective industries who would want to set up shop there.

Sheer millpower in Sterling Steel production in the one-time “Hardware Capital of the World,” Sterling, is still going strong with Sterling Steel Co. continuing to crank it out on the grounds of the former Northwestern Steel and Wire. Sterling Steel, owned by Leggett & Platt, began in 2002, a year after Northwestern closed its doors, and employs about 400 people.

The Northwestern property was vast, stretching from near downtown Sterling almost to Galt. As its name indicates, it was a maker of steel and wire products, but first began in 1879 with the fabrication of wire. That all changed in 1936 with a large expansion and the first steel to be produced there.

According to a centennial history of Northwestern, “100 Years of Progress, 1879-1979,” by advertising manager Dan Dickinson, the Great Depression of the 1930s caused a shortage in wire rods sent its way. Owner and chairman P.W. Dillon had to come up with a solution, and fast. Northwestern would create the steel for the rods itself, despite a law in place that regulated the new construction of blast furnaces. The solution: the

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steel would be made by electric furnaces. This led to a name change in 1938 from the Northwestern Barb Wire Company to Northwestern Steel and Wire.

The number and sizes of the furnaces grew over the next 40 years, as did the territory: New mills sprung up on the west side of Avenue G and expanded out west to parallel the Rock River and the Chicago and North Western railway. The boom in steel construction, largely due to World War II, led to an influx of new workers from the southwest United States to work and reside nearby the facility — an area known as “Silver City.”

By 1960, Avenue G — by then a main thoroughfare through Sterling’s west side that linked with Rock Falls — and the area around it were bustling with factory trucks and slow moving trains that carried products and scrap. This led to a bridge over the mill’s grounds. On busy and windy days, the smoke that came from the mill often played havoc with drivers’ visibility, slowing traffic to a snail’s pace.

While infrastructure around the mill improved, there still were old but trustworthy methods of keeping the mill a welloiled machine. Steam locomotives hauled cars to and from one end of the mill to the other, and sometimes ran on streets just feet away from the nearby houses. These engines retired from the railways until the last one, a Baldwin Steam Engine No. 73, ceased service along the mill’s lines in 1981.

Northwestern Steel and Wire closed in 2001 after 122 years making wire and 63 years in the steel industry.

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STEEL cont’d from page 4 The Baldwin engine, and a caboose, were moved to the Dillon Home Museum later that year, where they can still be seen: a reminder of their role in local industry. This piece of steel mill history and be seen at the museum during its regular hours, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. Find it on Facebook, call 815-622-6202 or go to sterlingparks.org/location/dillon-home-museum for more information.

Hennepin was on a roll Looking for another piece of steel mill history? Take a road trip about an hour’s drive southeast of Sterling to the seat of Putnam County in Hennepin, where J&L Steel was born. The county historical society in town has a pair of rolling pins from the plant that were used to flatten steel.

Hennepin’s mill started a couple of decades after World War II ended, but it proved to be so important that it helped the town’s population double from nearly 400 before it was built to nearly 800 by the time it closed after nearly 45 years.

The Jones and Laughlin Co. purchased 6,500 acres of land north of former state Route 26 in 1965. Construction started 1 year later, and it opened the first of what was supposed to be multiple phases in December 1967.

This mill took pre-made hot-rolled coils of steel and made cold rolls and galvanized sheets out of them. The finished sheets were given a zinc coating and a variety of surface finishes. Some steel that went out of the mill was corrugated.

The mill had planned to expand, but those plans cooled off.

Ling-Temco-Vaught bought the mill in 1968, and it became LTV Steel in 1984 after a merger with Republic Steel. The company never expanded upon its original phase during the 1970s, and a large decline in steel production in the 1980s ultimately killed any prospects of expansion – that same worldwide drop in demand also sent Northwestern Steel and Wire into a decline it would not recover from.

After a few more ownership changes, final owner ArcelorMittal closed the mill in 2009, citing a drop in steel demand and issues with the global economy at the time. More than 700 people worked at the mill at its peak during the 1970s, but there were only 285 employed when it closed.

Demolition work on more than 1 million square feet of the mill wrapped up in 2017. Today, some of the buildings remain and the 800-plus acre site has been cleaned up and is ready for industrial development.

The rolling pins that were salvaged and moved to the Putnam County Historical Society grounds were made for the plant’s 30th Anniversary in 1995. Next to the pins is a memorial plaque in honor of “deceased brothers and sisters of United Steel Workers of America Local 7367 and amalgamates.”

The Putnam County Historical Society also has a selection of agriculture artifacts outside its museum at 501 Old Highway 26.

The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the first Saturday of each month from March to December. Find it on Facebook, call 815-303-5107 or go to pchistorical.com for more information.

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By Cody Cutter | Sauk Valley Media

STERLING — There was a time when Sterling was known as the “Hardware Capital of the World” for its role in the steel and manufacturing process, from making tools to making the tools that made the tools.

But for one Sterling company, that time is now.

For more than a century, Frantz Manufacturing has made a host of steel-based products, from toys to garage doors to roller skates, but what rolls out of its doors these days is a wide variety of carbon steel balls, steel bearings and steel conveyor wheels. The manufacturing industry keeps them going, and they help keep the manufacturing industry going — and that’s not the only thing the company keeps going.

It helps keep a lot of other stuff moving, too, like the vehicle you drive.

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FRANTZ cont’d from page 6 “Ever think about how products you buy get to the store, or delivered to your home? It is because somewhere along the way that product rolled down a conveyor line,” Frantz Vice President of Human Resources Robert Urbanski said. “Those conveyors more than likely have Frantz ball bearings in them, making everything roll.

That’s what we do: keep the world rolling. That can include the automotive industry, too.

If you own an auto or truck with a V-8 or diesel engine, it is almost certain that the engine has push rods with Frantz Sterling Steel drill balls attached.”

For a city led by the steel industry, Frantz is a survivor of Sterling’s largest manufacturers, dating back to the company’s founding in 1909. Gone are Northwestern Steel and Wire, National Manufacturing and Lawrence Brothers, but Frantz has evolved over the years and rolled with the changes.

Today, Frantz is focused on what it does best while having faith in its future, Urbanski said.

“There were many lean years in the early 2000’s,” he said. Many companies folded or sold out. Frantz’s family ownership stayed the course, kept people working and made changes that re-focused us all on what we are good at: strong engineering and providing specialty products and solutions to our customers that our competition does not.

“We bounced back from that decade of hardship and continue to grow today.”

Much of the momentum has to do with the steel balls Frantz produces at its plant on West Fourth Street between the Steelton Subdivision and Galt. Sterling Steel Ball, Frantz’s ball arm, not only makes balls for vehicle engines but for its bearings that are produced about a half-mile northeast of the steel ball facility, on West LeFevre Road.

Frantz observed a historical milestone this year with its 50th year of operating a separate bearing plant, and 2022 will mark 75 years since the first steel balls popped out of the machines in its own facility.

When the ball bearing plant opened in 1947, each wheel on a pair of skates had seven balls in them, and each skate had eight wheels. As skate production increased with the growing popularity of leisure-time activities after World War II, the demand for skates led to a greater demand for steel balls. “The magnitude of the necessity can be easily figured,” the Sterling Gazette wrote on May 3, 1947, showing the need for a separate facility in addition to their headquarters in downtown Sterling.

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FRANTZ cont’d from page 8 Frantz hired a pair of officials to oversee the first steel ball operations; Thomas Pew and Marvin Awling came from the Hoover Ball company of Ann Arbor, Michigan, one of the largest steel ball makers in the nation. At the start, there were only six grinders that made quarter-inch steel balls, but the number of sizes and weights have increased in the nearly 75 years since.

Business was booming enough to warrant another separate facility for bearings, which was built in 1971 on West LeFevre.

That left the downtown building as a garage door and building products facility until that end was sold to Wayne Dalton in 1994.

More than 100 employees, from office workers to line workers, take pride in the products Frantz makes with state-of-theart technology.

Frantz’s stainless steel conveyor bearings and ball transfer bearings are made in two types of steel that can be used either for maximum temperatures of 450 or 850 degrees. Conveyor bearing types include re-greaseable bearings, radial thrust bearings, wide flange bearings, tapered roller conveyor bearings, sprocketed roller conveyor bearings, high-temperature conveyor bearings and heavily durable Power Swage 2.5-inch conveyor bearings. Also among their products are ball transfers, ball castors, ball bearing sheaves, axle-free GenStar Eliminator bearings, chamfered bearings, end cup conveyor bearing adapters, and machine and cold-formed steel spacers.

Other steel balls made are ones that are precision drilled,

soft-ground polished, hardened carbon, economy-grade carbon, stainless steel, burnishing media discs, and Frantz’s very own Sterling Armor balls. These signature steel balls, according to Frantz’s website, are more cost effective versus stainless steel, and use a heat treating process that physically changes the microstructure within the steel surface of the ball, creating a multi-layered corrosion resistant case depth. These balls, which come in a gloss black patina or a dull finish, perform better in varying water, alcohol, ammonia and hydraulic oil environments. They are non-toxic, environmentally friendly and don’t produce harmful chemical by-products.

The bearing plant sells to the material handling industry and conveyor manufacturers that use the bearings in their conveyor tubes. The steel ball plant makes the balls for the bearings, but also for drawer slides, shotgun shells, fishing lures, and even push rods in large automobile engines. Bearings are also sold to the automotive industry.

From the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic onward, Frantz became aware of how it would affect business, and took many steps to brace for it. Pandemic-related pay policies and new safety practices were implemented before the government enacted requirements, Urbanski said. John Gvozdjak, Frantz’s president and CEO, keeps his employees updated weekly on the state of the pandemic and its effects in an effort to do “what we need to do to keep each other, and our families, safe,” Urbanski said.

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FRANTZ cont’d from page 9

Go to frantz-mfg.com or find Frantz Manufacturing Company on Facebook to learn more about Frantz and its products.

Frantz is hiring! Go to frantz-mfg.com/career_ opportunities or email HR@frantz-mfg.com to read specific job openings or to send an application or resume for other openings which may come up.

it began to make conveyor wheels as part of its garage door operations.

“People respond to that and it is part of why Peter Frantz retired in 1925. After a few more than 80 percent of our workforce got years of retirement, he contributed a substanvaccinated as soon as the shots were available,” tial amount of money toward the founding Urbanksi said. “The company did not have to of a nursing school at the Bethany Hospital force anyone to do it. They gave us the facts in Chicago. He lived his final days in Chicago and we made our own decisions.” and died in 1949, living long enough to see the Frantz has come a long way from making plant that bore his name expand fencing and bobsleds. to multiple facilities in a city he Peter Frantz, born in 1868 in helped make the “Hardware CapSpringfield, Ohio, came to the ital of the World.”

Sauk Valley in the late 1890s and No matter what one’s role is developed an early chain stay in the company, everyone has a fence at his shop in Mount Morris. voice in Frantz’s success. Strong In 1904, Peter and his brother, teamwork and a family atmosEzra, came to Sterling to operate a phere are instrumental in makmachine shop, and also made bobing that happen, Urbanksi said. sleds and wagon boxes. The Frantz Peter Frantz “Frantz is small enough that Specialty Company was started in 1909, and 2 years later it turned into its current everyone is connected to making the company successful, because we can all see the impact operation, Frantz Manufacturing Company, highlighted by the production of movable light- we have on the day-to-day operations,” Urbanski said. “We can all see how our jobs count. ing fixtures for desks and other platforms.

Sure, that also means we sometimes have to Over the years, though, Frantz has dabbled wear a lot of hats and pitch in wherever it is in a bit of everything — from garage doors to needed, even if that is not your normal job. toys. In 1922, Frantz entered the garage door business with new over-the-top doors; in 1939, There is satisfaction in that as well.”

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Bianca Rodriguez assembles chain at Allied-Locke in Dixon. The manufacturer is spread out over seven buildings in Dixon and two more plants in Mississippi.

Allied-Locke CEO Bill Crowson talks about the heat-treating machines at the plant. Crowson’s father started the company in 1965.

STORY BEGINS ON NEXT PAGE

PHOTOS: ALEX T. PASCHAL/APASCHAL@SHAWMEDIA.COM

ABOVE: Brenda Harris runs one of the company’s new Smart Machines, which cuts, shapes and mills pieces. RIGHT: Miguel Bahena stands near the laser machine he runs at Allied-Locke.

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By Cody Cutter | Sauk Valley Media

or Allied-Locke, the old saying about a chain being as strong as its weakest link is kind of a moot point. That’s because you won’t find any weak links coming out of its factory.

The Dixon company makes chains and sprockets for industrial, mechanical, agriculture and wastewater use.

In short, Allied-Locke helps keep the world moving, and it does it with a focus on quality. In fact, it’s part of their motto: “Reach for the star of quality” — and for Allied, the company doesn’t have to reach too far; it finds it right at home.

That’s because “Made in the USA” is a big part of Allied’s business plan. The company’s output begins with input from American-made materials. All of the steel used to build its products is domestic, something that goes a long way when competing with countries such as China.

“We really feel that the best manufacturing principle is to try to do everything you possibly can within your own house,” said Bill Crowson, Allied-Locke’s longtime CEO. “We try to do the whole operation, from raw material to finished product,

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and if we do it that way, we have the best control over our product.

China is a tough competitor, and the way we try to compete against them is to promote quality. To promote quality, you have to control your production, so we try to do as much as we can in-house.”

ALLIED-LOCKE cont’d to page 13

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ALLIED-LOCKE cont’d from page 12 Allied-Locke makes five lines of products: Large engineering-class chains, agricultural chains for farm vehicles and winter plow and salt vehicles, more than 10 types of precision roller chains, just as many types of sprockets, and environmental products used in potable and wastewater treatment plants. They are made with state-of-the-art technology, with new machines often being installed on its factory floors.

“Manufacturing today, especially with the way China has taken over the world, is very, very competitive,” Crowson said. “In order to survive, you have to have state-of-the-art equipment and capable and dedicated people because quality is so important in today’s world. When you go to the store and take something off of the shelf, you don’t want to bring it home and have problems. You want it to work accordingly.”

ALEX T. PASCHAL/APASCHAL@SHAWMEDIA.COM

Big chains, little chains and sizes in between, Allied-Locke can make them all, and more.

And those chains end up in all sorts of places, like the little links at left that are used in medical devices.

ALLIED-LOCKE cont’d to page 14

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ALLIED-LOCKE cont’d from page 13 Brenda Harris operates a new computerized lathe installed in early November. The machine and its operator transforms round bars into parts and shapes. Harris is no stranger to learning to run new tools, and she doesn’t mind it.

“It keeps me young,” said Harris, an assistant computer numerics cutting supervisor. “The updated equipment helps tremendously and keeps things more productive.”

Further proof of Allied-Locke being a place where people enjoy working comes in the recognition of long-time employees and the family-like atmosphere in its workforce. In recent years, nearly 40 people have celebrated more than 25 years on the job, and it’s not unusual to run across married couples or family members at the factory.

One family, the Albees, has had four generations — Art, Bruce, Matt and Vern — work there. Wander through the Brenda e administrative area, m o s s Harris show h it and office doors are w e s mad of the part . e in h c not only graced by a w Smart M y ll ia Frantz’s ne c e name plates, but esp ring today, over n “Manufactu e k also the year they ta s a h ay China tive,” ti e with the w p m began working o c is very, very n. o s w ro the world, C l for the company, il OB -Locke CE e v a h to e said Allied v a recognition of u ha survive, yo nd a t n “In order to e their dedication. m ip u e-art eq le p state-of-th o e p Allied-Locke’s d te d dedica capable an top leadership duo ality is so because qu — Crowson and Allied’s important.” president, Jeff Shoemaker — are both second-generation members of Allied’s team.

Last year marked Crowson’s 50th anniversary with the company that his father, Robert, started as Allied Chains in 1965.

Jeff’s dad, Orville, started at Allied in 1970 and worked there for more than 45 years, and Jeff rose through the ranks in his 29 years to become president.

“I grew up here,” Jeff said. “It’s a great team environment.”

Allied Chains started at the Green River Industrial Park near Amboy, and has been there ever since, eventually becoming Allied-Locke — but if it hadn’t been for Robert Crowson being bored with retirement, the company may have never gotten off the ground. Robert’s passion for chain manufacturing hadn’t dimmed, even after many years working for International Harvester and his own company, Chains, Inc. of Chicago, by the time he retired in 1957. The restlessness with retirement led him to found Allied Chains.

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“He felt that he made a mistake, and wanted to go back into it,” Crowson said.

Robert retired from day-to-day operations in 1975, and Bill took over. From there, the company grew: It acquired the Locke Steel Chain Co. of Huntington, Indiana, in 1977 and became Allied-Locke; the Culman Industries sprocket company of suburban Wheeling in 1985; leading precision roller chain company Chain Engineering in 1988; engineering-class chain manufacturing Moline Corp. in 1992; Sheldon Engineering in 1997; and Southeast Chain in 2004. In addition to two facilities in the Green River Industrial Park, it has two facilities in Mississippi, and more than 350 employees work in its four bases.

Even after all of the acquisitions and growth, the company has remained loyal to the Lee County area.

“We have a very dedicated group of people,” Crowson said, “and we invest back in the company to buy better and better equipment so that the dedicated people have state-of-the-art equipment to use to produce the chains that we have.”

Allied-Locke has several large manufacturing and agriculture customers, such as Caterpillar and Archer-Daniels-Midland — two companies with longtime roots in central Illinois — as well as Wyler and AGCO. John Deere is its largest customer, and in recent years the Moline-based company has asked Allied-Locke to manufacture several parts specific to its farm vehicles, on top of chains and sprockets.

ALLIED-LOCKE cont’d to page 15

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Hot stuff, coming through! A chain glows as it travels through a furnace during a heat treatment.

ALEX T. PASCHAL/APASCHAL@SHAWMEDIA.COM

ALLIED-LOCKE cont’d from page 14

make this chain, Crowson said.

“This chain was used in the agricultural market for years and It makes a rotor flight for the back of John Deere combines, years and years, and it’s slowly been replaced by other stronger something it started doing last year. chains,” Crowson said. “There’s still a residual market for them “When the feeder house chain brings the corn in, it feeds out there, and now we’re the only ones that make it.” it into these huge rotors,” Shoemaker said. “That’s something The Amish often use older equipment to farm, and the steel John Deere approached us with, so we branched out and detachable chains are quite useful for them. did a little something different.”

“They use it a lot for feed spreaders,” ShoemakProducts are made for John Deere vehier said. “There’s a trough on each side, and cles that are manufactured not only in the More they create a cart with a spin disc that just United States, but also in Germany, Brazil, tosses the feed as they walk down, and info d Israel and Mexico. The acquisition of ke.com, fin c lo d they use detachable chain to spin that.” ie ll a ok Go to on Facebo .

Locke in 1977 paved the way for the c In ., d After 56 years of business, AlIn e Allied-Lock learn more to successful partnership Allied-Locke 1 7 4 -1 8 lied-Locke continues to keep busy as 8 or call 815-2 roducts. has with John Deere. e and its p k c o it keeps its eye on the future and a -L d . e ie k ll dloc about A . Go to allie “We’re so close, and Deere knows g in ir h commitment to the values of the past is . e locke Allied-Lock info@allied il our capabilities,” Crowson said, “and a m e r that helped it grow — and as long as o rs com/caree ation or rec li p p they’re asking us constantly, ‘Can you a n a the there’s a demand for quality chains d com to sen , as well make this for us?’ We like to see that.” t openings n e and sprockets, the company will play rr u c r fo y sume s which ma g Steel detachable chains weren’t in n e an important role in keeping the world p o y as an e future. th in unique to Allied-Locke more than 40 p u moving. e com years ago, but time and technology has “I think we’ve done a good job positioning improved the types of many chains. Today, ourselves for the future, versus our competiit is the only manufacturer of the steel detachation,” Shoemaker said, noting the some are more deble variety, made from special hot-rolled strip steel that’s pendent on imports, which have been harder to get in some heat-treated to assure high strength and long wear life; they cases. “We have the ability to make all of it,” he said. are designed for moderate loads and speeds and are also easy Homegrown values and homegrown products: It’s a comto install and repair. bination that goes together like a chain and sprocket, and one that will help keep the company — and the world’s machines Sylvanius Locke, founder of the former Locke company, had 103 patents to his name, and his last patent was the operation to — moving ahead for years to come.

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