Rich history lesson from one of Atlas’ own
Welland company had 3,000 employees during wartime
Did you know that Welland has a connection with the famous Barcalounger chair?
It came through a company called Quality Beds Ltd., a subsidiary of the Barcalo Manufacturing Company of Buffalo, NY.
Quality Beds once sat on the site of the former Atlas Steels, said ASW Steel Inc. president Tim Clutterbuck Saturday afternoon at Welland Museum.
But that company wasn’t the first to sit on the site of the oncegreat steel giant.
“I had no idea that Frost Fence was the original owner of the property,” said Clutterbuck, adding Quality Beds moved on to the site when Frost Fence moved.
He learned those facts while researching the museum exhibit, Atlas: Memories Forged In Steel.
“It was fun research for me. I don’t normally look back too much, I try to typically look forward but this has been interesting.”
Clutterbuck spoke about Atlas and the history of the site during a presentation to a small group at the museum. He has another presentation on Nov. 2.
“I was involved with Penny (Morningstar, museum curator) in the setup of the exhibit and while we were talking I had a lot of time to reminisce about the Atlas Steel days.”
Before his presentation, Clutterbuck said he started at Atlas in 1980.
“Most of the fun history there was before that. I experienced a lot of things that weren’t so much fun perhaps.”
But he said the reality of the company was that it was a tremendous organization with mindboggling connections on an international scale. A company that was recognized across the globe and existed in 53 countries, and still does to some degree.
“It was always a family business and I saw strands of that in the 80s and 90s. Today, we have people who work for us whose parents and grandparents worked at Atlas. There’s that connection between us (ASW) and the old Atlas.”
Clutterbuck said in researching the company’s history he came to appreciate how the steel industry, Atlas and Welland all came together in the early 1900s.
“The company was critical to the war effort in both the First and Second world wars for Canadian and British troops.”
Atlas manufactured everything from bullet cores, gun barrels, anti-tank guns, to steel used in planes. The Second World War saw the number of workers increase to 3,000 in 1942 from 1,600 in 1941.
“It was the cornerstone of the development of products like a hollow drill, a mining steel. It also produced tool and machine steel.”
Clutterbuck said the company was pivotal in development speciality steels used worldwide.
Today, ASW is one of four companies in North America that make stainless and alloy steels and, said Clutterbuck, has all the capability to make the thousands of grades that Atlas made throughout the years.
He said 115 people are working at the plant, down from 125 due to the usual summer slowdown and tariffs coming off Canadian steel earlier this year.