Sibley Machine — the drill-press works that outlived its product

1874 – present

Founded: The Sibley Drill Press Company was founded in 1874 by three tradesmen: Albert P. Sibley, a machinist; George Ware, a pattern maker; and John R. Mills, a machinist. Farr's 1883 directory carries the young firm twice over — "Sibley & Ware, e Tutt rear 802 s Michigan," one of the city's only two machine shops, and an advertisement in the directory's advertiser index — and Howard's 1907 list carries it twice more, as "The Sibley Machine Tool Company" and as "The Sibley Drill Manufacturers." Its early customers were the great works around it: Studebaker, the Oliver Plow works, and Notre Dame. A foundry was integrated into the company in 1900.

The turn to contract work: The drill press made the company's name, and the company outgrew it. By the early 1950s, on the company's own history, outside contract machining far exceeded the drill-press business, and as numerical control came into the trade Sibley left drill-press manufacture altogether and became a contract machine shop. It is the rarest thing in this record: a firm of the 1870s still working. Today it does contract machining in about 50,000 square feet, under the name Sibley Machine and Foundry Corporation, at 127 East Sample Street — and on 25 March 2021 it signed a redevelopment agreement with the City of South Bend for its ground. The agreement's legal description places the Sibley lots in "the Indiana Lumber Co. 2nd Tutt Street Addition," so that the lumber company's plat of the directory age survives inside a twenty-first-century instrument.

The foundry's sale, carried as a conflict: The company's own history states: "In 2004, Sibley divested itself of the foundry division." The South Bend Tribune's 2003 account of the trade states instead that Bill Voll was president of Sibley Machine & Foundry Corp. when the foundry was sold to General Casting Co. in 1998 — the foundry later renamed South Bend Foundry — and that Voll continued the machine shop at 206 East Tutt Street. The two accounts cannot both date the same sale, and they are printed side by side, unreconciled: the divestiture happened, at 1998 on the newspaper's record or 2004 on the company's.

Sources:

1. Sibley Machine, the company's published history — the 1874 founding by Sibley, Ware, and Mills and their trades; the foundry of 1900; the early customers; the early-1950s turn to contract work; the exit from drill presses; the 2004 foundry divestiture; and the present contract-machining operation.
2. South Bend Tribune (2003), as carried in the ProQuest summary — Bill Voll's presidency, the foundry's sale to General Casting Co. in 1998 and its later name, South Bend Foundry, and the machine shop's continuation at 206 E. Tutt St.
3. City of South Bend, development agreement with Sibley Machine and Foundry Corporation, 25 March 2021 — the corporation's name and East Sample Street address, and the Indiana Lumber Co. plat in the legal description.
4. Farr's South Bend City Directory for 1883, Classified Business Directory and Index to Advertisers — the Sibley & Ware machine-shop listing and advertisement.
5. Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana, Vol. 1 (1907), manufactures chapter, sec. 15 — the company's two listings in the closing list.