Warner & Swasey Company

They worked together for 20 years without a formal corporate agreement, during which time their partnership's principal products were various models of lathes and milling machines.

[5] From the beginning, the partners built both machine tools and telescopes, which reflected their interests in toolmaking, instrument-making, and astronomy.

After nearly 20 years of successful growth, the partners realized that their business was growing enough that it should be given a formal corporate structure, so in 1900 they reorganized it under the official name of The Warner & Swasey Company.

Bendix Corporation acquired Warner & Swasey in 1980 for nearly $300 million, beating out a competing bid by AMCA International.

The first Warner & Swasey telescope, built in 1881,[8] was sold to Beloit College for its new Smith Observatory and had a 9.5-inch lens made by Alvan Clark & Sons.

In 1919, the company's founders donated their private observatory in East Cleveland, Ohio to Case Western Reserve University.

[17] The Company acquired in 1967, the Sargent Engineering Corporation of Fort Dodge, Iowa, a manufacturer of hydraulic cranes.

Their six Sargent Hydra-Tower Crane models enabled the company to move into another large segment of the construction industry using hydraulic machinery.

That same year the Company partnered with a Canadian paper industry association in the manufacture of the Arbomatik, a line of hydraulic tree harvesting equipment.

In 1995 Morgan, Lewis, Githens & Ahn, a New York City investment firm acquired the company and directed an IPO, but retained a controlling interest.

[21] James Hartness, president of competitor Jones & Lamson Machine Company, a contemporary of Worcester Reed Warner and Ambrose Swasey who shared their avocations of developing better telescopes and better turret lathes.