The M. B. Skinner Company — pipe clamps for the gas age

Documented in the trade record, 1928 – 1959

The firm: The M. B. Skinner Company made one family of things and made it for the whole country: clamps and saddles that repair and tap pressurized pipe without shutting it down — the Skinner-Seal pipe joint clamp, the collar leak clamp, the bell joint clamp, the service saddle and saddle tee. The University of Notre Dame's Building South Bend property records place the firm in the city by 1928, when its assistant president was a house buyer on East Wayne Street. From the 1930s through the 1950s its advertisements run continuously through the American Gas Journal, addressed from "M. B. Skinner Co., South Bend 21, Ind., U.S.A." — the saddle tee that cuts a service connection in three minutes with no pipe cutting and no threading; the emergency pipe clamp "of almost unlimited strength"; the collar clamp "constantly improved." A 1937 notice in Railway Signaling's new-devices pages describes the clamp for the railroad trade, and the Paper Trade Journal of 9 September 1937 notices the company's Pipe Repair Handbook, furnished free to men responsible for pipe maintenance.

At the record's size: By 1959 the company's own advertising claimed its clamps had "been serving the industry for over half a century," which would put the founding near the century's first decade; the claim is the company's, and no founding date was verified first-hand. The firm's course after 1959 was not traced.

Sources:

1. American Gas Journal, the company's advertisements, 1936–1959 — the Skinner-Seal saddle tee, pipe joint clamp, collar leak clamp, bell joint clamp, and emergency pipe clamp; the South Bend 21 address; and the 1959 claim of over half a century in the industry.
2. Railway Signaling, "New Devices," March 1937 — the M. B. Skinner Company pipe clamp, described for the railroad trade.
3. Paper Trade Journal, 9 September 1937 — the notice of the company's Pipe Repair Handbook.
4. University of Notre Dame, Building South Bend property records — the firm's assistant president as a South Bend house buyer in 1928.