The story
Founded by Oberlin Smith.1
Ferracute Machine Company initially started out as a machine shop but it eventually went on to produce metal forming presses. Early presses were manufactured to make tin cans but eventually the larger Ferracute presses were used extensively to produce automobile parts for Cadillac, Packard, Pierce, Chrysler, Ford and others. In 1910 Ferracute produced 39 presses for Ford's Highland Park plant. Ford Motor Company eventually purchased almost 500 Ferracute presses between 1914 and 1917 for the war effort. Ferracute produced presses for Baldwin Locomotive Works, General Electric as well as for munitions plants in England and Canada.
Under Oberlin Smith's direction, Ferracute Machine Company was progressive and he was always looking for the cutting edge applications for his presses. He traveled to Europe often to seek opportunities. With this goal in mind he produced presses to mint coins; one of his customers was the U.S. Mint. In 1897, engineer Henry A. Janvier went to China to install three presses in the Imperial Chinese mint. In 1909, Ferracute installed the first electric presses in La Casa de Moneda (the mint) of Potosi, Bolivia - one of the oldest and largest mints of the Americas, first established during the Spanish colonial period in 1572.
From Wikipedia’s article on Ferracute Machine Company, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3