Mr. Benjamin F. Sturtevant
, the founder of the company which constructed fans,
was a Maine shoemaker of inventive genius.
He had devised a machine to shave a ribbon of wood from a log, form it into
pegs, and drive them into shoes.
This process, however, created a dust which bothered his workmen.
Accordingly he next constructed a fan which performed as an exhauster and
removed the dust. Thus in 1864 the first Sturtevant fan was produced.
Concentrating on his latter invention, he established what grew into the B.F.
Sturtevant Company,
with its great plants and offices, research laboratories and corps of engineers,
and its wide variety of products in the field of fans, blowers, and allied
air-moving equipment.
The
Boston heritage site
says 'Huge factory complexes dotted the
district, perhaps the most impressive being the giant turbine and
fanblower manufacturer B. F. Sturtevant Company, founded in 1876. It
survives under the same name today as a subsidiary of Westinghouse.'
The company produced Steam Turbines, Air systems such as the extraction system
for the
Holland Tunnel in New York
, fans for locomotives
Steam engines,
and under its subsidiary the
Sturtevant Aviation Co
, it produced several Aircraft.
Vincent Tocco has produced an excellent website covering all aspects of the B.
F. Sturtevant Company on
www.sturtevantfan.com
They also later diversified into Industrial Vacuum Systems:
my_email