WAYNESBORO, Pa. – Waynesboro was once a global industrial giant with multiple manufacturing companies producing products used by other companies across the world. For 150 years, four companies in this small south-central Pennsylvania town made a significant contribution to the agricultural, automotive and refrigeration industry.
In 1997 during Waynesboro’s Bicentennial celebration, a group of Rotarians and other prominent citizens organized a display of Waynesboro’s industrial history through artifacts, newspaper articles and photographs. This event led to the establishment of the permanent Waynesboro Industrial Museum three years later when the Mennonite Church sold one of its three churches to house the artifacts and historic records.
The museum showcases Waynesboro’s industrial age from 1807 through the current day. Around the interior museum walls, a timeline explains the birth and steady growth of industries in Waynesboro from the Geiser Company to modern day businesses.
“We have a lot of things related to Waynesboro’s industrial history, but it is mostly in boxes and totes,” said Brian Shook. Of the physical artifacts in the museum are multiple products manufactured by Landis Machine and Landis Tool Company. Several toolboxes used by employees as they learned their “trades” as apprentices are stark reminders to the skill precision and knowledge the factory workers were required to learn to successfully earn the role as machinists.
Table displays in the industrial museum are covered with hundreds of photographs, legal documents, invoices, ledgers and other ephemera that explain the daily operations of the factors in Waynesboro. Newspaper articles chronicle the major events of each factory and their eventual corporate ownership changes during the recent decades. The steam whistle from Landis Machine Company reminds visitors of the past when workers were alerted for their breaks.
Frick Company produced refrigeration equipment for large refrigeration storage buildings and for several winter Olympic game ice rinks. The Hershey Arena’s ice rink was designed and built by Frick Company. The Geiser Manufacturing Company built various mechanized agricultural machines including steam-powered traction engines, threshers, separators, portable engines, and sawmills. Landis Machine Company built precision bolt-threading machines, threading die heads and related threading tools. Landis Tool Company built universal grinding machines, automobile camshaft/crankshaft grinders and ball bearing race grinders.
Today, most of the original four manufacturing factories in Waynesboro are no longer in business or have moved. Geiser Manufacturing filed for bankruptcy in 1936, and the factory’s remaining plant was lost to a fire in August 1940. Frick is now Johnson Controls still building refrigeration equipment. Landis Machine Company has significantly downsized and razed buildings on its property over the past several decades. It is now making industrial thread cutting and thread rolling tools as well as dies under the ownership of Kennametal/Landis Solutions. In 2008, Landis Tool Company closed its plant in Waynesboro and moved to Hagerstown, as Fives Landis Corporation, building precision grinding equipment.
The Waynesboro Industrial Museum is open to the public every Tuesday 9 a.m. to Noon. Special events are planned for this July during America’s Semiquincentennial celebration. Readers may visit the museum’s website https://industrialmuseum.weebly.com/ for more information.
