Temple Pump Co. was a long-established Chicago manufacturer when it began building gasoline engines, including Master Workan gas engines, in the early 1900s. With a reputation for quality and innovation, Temple quickly became a manufacturing powerhouse, marketing engines throughout the U.S. and beyond.
Temple’s 1911 catalog proudly proclaimed the company’s 58th year in business. The mighty factory of Temple was shown on the first page. The factory was bounded on the north by 15th Street and on the south by 15th Place (formerly Meagher). The eastern edge was bordered by railroad tracks, and the west was a short distance from Canal Street. The plant’s overall footprint measured 175 by 225 feet. The four-story main building, built of brick, was 52 feet tall. Two 75hp steam engines provided the power for a dynamo and ran machinery via line shafts.
In the catalog, Temple claimed to be the oldest manufacturing concern in Chicago. Although it was the oldest, the company kept its machinery up to date, allowing it to produce a high-grade engine at the lowest cost.
Ambitious immigrant puts experience to work
The journey to build this manufacturing Temple began with John F. Temple’s birth in Germany in 1815. As a teenager, he worked as an apprentice in the manufacture of musical instruments. The skills he gained as a mechanic would serve him throughout his life as a manufacturer and inventor.
Immigrating to the U.S. at age 17, Temple landed penniless in Baltimore, but soon found work as a mechanic. After a few years, he moved northward, eventually settling in Utica, New York, where he married and started a family. He also took up a cause, becoming a founding member of New York’s first anti-slavery society.
In 1852, Temple moved his family west to Chicago, which had been incorporated as a city 15 years earlier with a population of 4,000. By the time Temple arrived, the city’s population had grown to more than 30,000. He worked as an agent for a planing mill but soon became established as a manufacturer of pumps with a factory on the corner of Polk and Canal streets.
Fledgling company rebounds from disaster
Both of John Temple’s sons served in the American Civil War. Returning from the war, they soon joined their father in the pump business. Wood was the primary material used in pumps and piping made in these early years. The company claimed to have built more than 100,000 pumps by the early 1870s.
In 1871, the great Chicago fire – starting in the O’Leary barn and quickly spreading north and east, burning an area 4 miles long and a mile wide – claimed more than 17,000 buildings. John F. Temple & Sons, just five blocks away, was consumed by the fire almost immediately. The city of Chicago was rebuilt with astonishing speed, and the Temple family was equally nimble, quickly rebuilding their business at the same address.
The business incorporated as Temple Pump Co. in 1882. The Temples were quite innovative, evidenced by John receiving a patent in 1870 for a machine to make pump buckets. Son Morris was even more the inventor, winning at least 18 patents (primarily for pumps) in his lifetime. The company continued to prosper, adding products such as windmills to its offering. In 1885, a big factory was built at 15th and Meagher streets. It would grow even larger with subsequent additions.
Temple was a family-run business, and the family took pride in never having to ask for an extension of credit. After John Temple’s death in 1895, Morris became company president. Other officers included Charles P. Miller (John Temple’s son-in-law), Thomas R. Fleming (Morris Temple’s son-in-law), and Aaron J. Miksch (who the Temple boys had met during the Civil War and brought back to Chicago).
Temple an early innovator
In 1901, Temple entered the gasoline engine market. A patent application filed on January 6, 1902, by Temple employee De Lonson E. Barnard, showed details of the new Temple engine. An inventor and machinist, Barnard joined the Temple organization in 1901. In 1900, he was granted a patent for a unique four-cylinder engine, following other patents on windmills and a feed grinder.
The new Temple engine was a two-cylinder model featuring an inverted vertical design, with the crankshaft and flywheels positioned above the cylinders. The patent application’s specific claims focused on the valve operating mechanism and governing system. Barnard worked for Temple until the spring of 1905, when he contracted smallpox and died. U.S. patent No. 791,126 was granted May 30, 1905, after the inventor’s death.
Temple advertised its new engine in newspapers and magazines, proclaiming the Temple engine to be a “Revolution in the Business,” and highlighting it as easy to start, low-vibration, space-saving and fuel-efficient. The company initially focused on the two-cylinder design, but soon added single-cylinder models to the lineup. Temple continued to experiment, adding engines to the line ranging from 1-75hp.
The company built traction engines as well, some with the two-cylinder inverted engine mounted on a platform, plus larger models featuring a four-cylinder horizontal opposed engine. Customer testimonials became a big part of Temple advertising, as the company worked to convince prospective buyers that the unique Temple engine was the one to buy.
Competitive pressures mount
By 1910, the gas engine market was changing rapidly. Many competitors had entered the fray, offering engines at extremely low prices. High-quality Temple engines carried a higher price than competitors’ products. Temple found it necessary to take a different tack, offering a 30-day free trial with easy terms. This no doubt enticed buyers, but it also led to cashflow and collection issues.
In September 1911, another company entered the market, advertising engines similar to Temple’s. This company, U.S. Engine Works, appears to be a parallel firm to Temple Pump Co. Maybe it would be better to describe it as a perpendicular company to Temple, as it showed its address as Canal Street, the crossing street with 15th and Meagher streets that Temple used. For the next several years, both Temple and U.S. Engine Works offered the same engines, with both claiming the same long duration of the company.
A disruptive change was announced in January 1913. Temple’s big factory was sold to the CB&Q (Burlington) Railroad for the purposes of terminal expansion at a price of $321,122 (the equivalent of nearly $10 million in 2022). Temple had already purchased land in nearby Cicero and had issued a contract for construction of a new factory for a total investment of $92,000.
Meanwhile, Temple management experienced an equally major transition. In 1912, at age 75, Morris Temple and two other officers of similar age stepped aside. Thomas R. Fleming (Morris Temple’s son-in-law) assumed the presidency. Morris remained with the company through 1913, but then retired to San Diego.
Temple’s new factory looks to have been completed by the beginning of 1914. It would have been a monumental effort, moving equipment from the old factory and getting it up and running in the new facility. The layout of the new factory was of more modern design, all on one level, and with many windows providing improved interior light.
Labor strike casts a fatal blow
In 1914, Temple management went through yet another shake-up. J.R. Bachelder was brought in from Fairbanks, Morse & Co. as a new vice president and manager. Thomas Fleming’s wife, Cornelia, was named secretary. In April 1914, the company was renamed Temple Mfg. Co. Ads for Temple engines ceased by June, replaced by engine ads under the U.S. Engine Works banner.
Period ads from U.S. Engine Works ($5 down and a year to pay) were termed the “Greatest Engine Offer” ever made by any factory. The company’s 62 years of manufacturing experience was also promoted, as was a 30-day free trial. By 1915, the ads were offering a low price of $29.95 on the smallest engine. Toward the end of 1915, the ads disappeared. The end was near.
In September 1916, Temple machinists, assemblers and painters went on strike, seeking a nine-hour day with 10 hours of pay. As the strike turned violent, the plant superintendent was badly beaten by five men. In 1917, Hurley Machine Co. (manufacturer of the Thor washing machine) purchased the Temple factory. Several of the plant’s heavy machine tools were released to other companies for use in the war effort. Thomas and Cornelia Temple Fleming retired to Long Beach, California.
Despite established roots dating to 1853, Temple had come crashing down. Ultimately, the company was unable to overcome the transition to a new factory and the rapidly evolving competitive climate. The oldest manufacturing Temple in Chicago was no more.
The Rise And Fall of Temple
Dating to the 1850s, Temple Pump Co. was a long-established company in Chicago when it entered the stationary engine business in 1901, but a struggle with market headwinds led to its demise. In September 1911, U.S. Engine Works entered the stationary engine market in Chicago, advertising engines similar to those produced by Temple.
Temple went on the offensive, selling its mammoth factory in 1913 and building a new facility in nearby Cicero. Meanwhile, several longtime Temple leaders — then in their mid-seventies — retired, taking decades of experience with them. In April 1914, new leaders were introduced. Just two months later, the company’s ads disappeared and Temple products were advertised by U.S. Engine Works.
U.S. Engine Works extended what the company proclaimed as the “Greatest Engine Offer” ever made. But by late 1915, those ads vanished. Less than a year later, following a prolonged and violent labor strike, the Temple factory was sold and its production equipment was released to other manufacturers for use in the war effort, and one of Chicago’s oldest manufacturers faded into the past. — The Farm Collector Staff
Barry Tuller is a collector of gas engines and related belt-driven equipment, literature and advertising. He enjoys learning about engines, and researching the history of the people and companies that made them. Email him at btengines@gmail.com.
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Originally published as “Building the Temple” in the July 2023 issue of Farm Collector magazine.
