Jones, Bass & Company → Bass Foundry & Machine Works

1853 – after WWII

Founded: 1853 — with a founding-name conflict that is not resolved. The year 1853 is agreed, but the founding firm is named two different ways in record-based sources. ACGSI's Bass Foundry page states the works was "founded in 1853 as Cooper, Bass & Company," was "operating as Bass & Hanna" in 1868, and was "incorporated by John H. Bass as Bass Foundry & Machine Company" in 1873. Griswold (1917), the News-Sentinel's Hawfield Cityscapes sketch, and ACGSI's own Sion Bass page instead say the 1853 firm was Jones, Bass & Company — W. H. Jones, John Hough Jr., Sion S. Bass, and John H. Bass. The National Register Baker Street Station nomination helps explain how both names entered the record without settling the firm name: it says the shops site next to the tracks "was first developed in 1853 by blacksmiths John and Charles Cooper," was purchased the next year by Sion Bass, and was then sold to the railroad — i.e., "Cooper" belongs in the record to the predecessor blacksmith operation on the Pennsy Shops site, which may have been conflated with the Bass firm itself. A second, related conflict: several accounts separate the 1853 firm from the Bass Foundry proper, dating the latter to 1862, when John H. Bass bought out his partners and planted the works on the south side of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago tracks (Hawfield; the nomination, citing Griswold p. 446). A third conflict is left flagged, not resolved: ACGSI gives incorporation in 1873, while Griswold's sketch says "In 1898 the company was incorporated with a capital of $1,500,000, which was later increased to $2,200,000" — the 1898 event may be a re-incorporation, but no source opened says so.

Founders: On the Jones, Bass & Company account: W. H. Jones, John Hough Jr., Sion S. Bass (arrived Fort Wayne 1848/49, formerly a clerk for fur traders Ewing, Chute and Company), and his younger brother John H. Bass (b. 9 November 1835, Salem, Kentucky; arrived 1852; bookkeeper in the firm 1854–1857 per Griswold). On the ACGSI summary account: the Cooper brothers, John and Charles Cooper, stand at the head of the line. Samuel (Judge) Hanna is a later partner — Griswold has Bass in business with Judge Samuel Hanna 1860–1863, then with Horace Hanna to about 1869, after which John H. Bass bought the Hanna interest and was sole owner; ACGSI's "Bass & Hanna" (1868) fits inside that sequence.

What it did: Made railroad rolling-stock iron — above all car wheels and axles — plus boilers, Corliss engines, complete power plants, iron and steel forgings and gray-iron castings (Griswold's product list). Its wheels and axles fed the Pennsy Shops directly across the tracks. Griswold also credits it with affiliated plants: St. Louis Car Wheel Company (founded 1869), a Chicago ironworks (1873), a Lenoir, Tennessee foundry, and the Rock Run, Alabama mining/smelting plant that supplied pig iron to Fort Wayne.

Course: The 1853 firm was sold to the railroad in 1857 and became the nucleus of the Pennsy Shops (see entry 17); the Bass brothers, with Sam Hanna, started again, and in 1862 John H. Bass took sole control of the new Hanna Street foundry. It grew fast on Civil War demand after Sion Bass was mortally wounded at Shiloh (April 1862). At its turn-of-the-century peak the News-Sentinel called it "the world's leading manufacturer of railroad wheels" and the city's biggest industry. Peak-size figures conflict by source and date and are not merged here: the News-Sentinel gives 1,100 men and a $35,000 monthly payroll "at one time," quoting the Fort Wayne Gazette of 1 January 1888 on the plant's vastness; Griswold (1917) gives an average of 2,500 men, a $1,500,000 annual payroll, a 20-acre Fort Wayne plant and 300,000 tons shipped annually from the two plants; the National Register nomination likewise puts the foundry "at its height" at 2,500 workers. John H. Bass died in 1922 (News-Sentinel).

Fate: Decline after 1922 — In 1939, "ravaged by the Depression," the foundry "filed for reorganization under federal bankruptcy law, claiming debts of $250,000," and its remaining 270 employees struck for a 10-cents-an-hour increase (News-Sentinel Cityscapes, 28 November 1981). In 1941 it was purchased by Thomas Simmons, described as a Hoosier living in California; World War II briefly revived it, hiring hundreds to produce war goods. Post-1941 fate, as far as the record opened carries it: the foundry "closed up shop after World War II ended" — (same Cityscapes account; no exact closing date is given, so none is claimed). ACGSI indexes the company's board minute book, 1919–1955, "including dissolution proceedings," at the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center / Archive.org — the corporate paper trail therefore runs to 1955, but the exact dissolution date is not established from the sources opened. By 1981 a few Hanna Street buildings (1602 to 1734 Hanna Street) survived, occupied by Shrex office supply and National Heat Treating Corp., some vacant; the National Register nomination (1997/98) noted portions of the Bass Foundry dating to c.1875 and c.1880 still surviving south of the tracks, in neglected condition.

Sources:

1. ACGSI / Allen INGenWeb, Bass Foundry and Machine Works (founding summary, minute-book index, and the Cityscapes text it reproduces) — https://www.acgsi.org/genweb/fort-wayne/bass-foundry-fort-wayne-indiana.html
2. ACGSI / Allen INGenWeb, Sion Bass (Jones, Bass and Company with W. H. Jones and John Hough Jr., 1853) — https://www.acgsi.org/genweb/people/bass-sion-allen-county-indiana.html
3. News-Sentinel Cityscapes, Kevin Leininger, "The life of the Bass Foundry," 28 November 1981 (peak, 1939 reorganisation, 1941 Simmons purchase, post-war closure) — http://egen.fortwayne.com/ns/projects/history/scapes4.php
4. News-Sentinel Cityscapes, Michael Hawfield, "Bass home built on industries" (John H. Bass partner in Jones, Bass and Co. in 1853; 1862 purchase and founding on the south side of the tracks) — http://egen.fortwayne.com/ns/projects/history/haw4.php
5. Griswold, B. J., The Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Vol. II (1917, public domain), John H. Bass biographical sketch ("had its inception in 1853, when it was organized as Jones, Bass & Company"; Bass & Force 1859; Hanna partnership; 1898 incorporation) — https://ldsgenealogy.com/IN/books/The-pictorial-history-of-Fort-Wayne-Indiana-a-review-of-two-centuries-of-occupation-of-the-region-about-the-head-of-the-Maumee-River-Vol-II-part-5.htm
6. National Register nomination, Pennsylvania (Baker Street) Railroad Station, Statement of Significance (Cooper blacksmith site 1853; Sion Bass purchase and sale to the railroad; Bass Foundry across the tracks) — https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/f2117a9e-7ba2-4da7-9d02-57eff891e1ca