Ohio Stove Company Workers (30 January 1942)

Text

The foundry workers pictured here in January of 1942 worked for the Ohio Stove Company, which was first organized in 1872. Perhaps the oldest manufacturer still operating in Portsmouth, they originally cast heating and cooking stoves, their most popular line known as the “Buckeye.” In 1953, about eleven years after this photo was taken, management shifted the foundry’s work away from stoves to casting parts for an expanding market in the air conditioning, transportation, and power transmission industries.

On the centennial anniversary of its founding in 1972, the corporation officially changed its name to OSCO Industries, Inc., thereby obscuring its origins in the stove manufacturing business. OSCO is a survivor and it remains one of southern Ohio’s major employers, with their original factory in Portsmouth and two other facilities in Jackson and New Boston.