Get FinancingHow A “Linked Belt” Helped Build A Company: A Brief History Of Link-Belt Cranes
The story of Link-Belt Cranes’ founding is similar to that of numerous companies. Someone—William Dana Ewart in Link-Belt Cranes’ case—identifies a problem that exists and sets out to innovate a solution. For Ewart, a farm implement dealer in Belle Plaine, Iowa, in the early 1870s, the problem concerned the square, flat links in the continuous chain-belt drives used in the harvesting equipment of the day. These links frequently wore out and required replacing, a process that effectively rendered a harvester useless until often lengthy repairs were performed back in the barn.
As a solution, Ewart devised a “linked belt” incorporating metal links that, if broken, were easily and quickly replaceable in the field. Ewart’s invention earned him a patent in 1874 and helped establish the Ewart Manufacturing Company in Iowa in 1875. In addition to being built into in farm implements and other equipment, the “link belt” led to the founding of the Link-Belt Machinery Company in 1880 and the Link-Belt Engineering Company in 1888. The companies’ efforts would lead to the development in about 1900 of the “first wide-gauge steam-powered coal handling clamshell crane,” which Link-Belt Cranes cites as the ancestor to modern Link-Belt construction equipment.
Acquisitions, Mergers & Successes
In 1906, the companies Ewart launched consolidated to form the Chicago-based Link-Belt Company, which would offer a complete line of crawler-mounted crane-shovels available by the early 1920s to go with its locomotive cranes and material-handling machines. In the mid-1930s, the Link-Belt Company introduced a hydraulic control system dubbed “Speed-O-Matic” that would make “all other systems obsolete” and become the “standard of the crane-shovel industry,” according to Link-Belt Cranes.
In 1939, Link-Belt Company acquired Speeder Machinery Corporation, which in 1922 was credited with introducing the first wheel-mounted excavator. Link-Belt Company eventually spun off Speeder Machinery and formed the wholly owned subsidiary Link-Belt Speeder Corporation based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. That move helped Link-Belt Company establish a complete line of “machines with centralized manufacturing, sales, and engineering” that would yield “substantial growth and profit” over the next three decades.
Link-Belt Speeder eventually introduced a “revolutionary full-function design concept” in 1949 that integrated the Speed-O-Matic controls. A noteworthy result of the concept was the LS-98 crane. Introduced in 1954, the LS-98 would become “one of the most successful pieces of construction equipment ever built” with production spanning four decades and 7,000-plus shipped units, Link-Belt Cranes says.
In 1967, Link-Belt Company underwent more change, entering into a merger with FMC Corporation that would transform Link-Belt Speeder into the Construction Equipment Group of FMC, which produced FMC Link-Belt-branded cranes and excavators. A 1986 joint venture between FMC Corporation and Sumitomo Heavy Industries would result in the formation of Link-Belt Construction Equipment Company.
Link-Belt Cranes Today
In 1998, Link-Belt Construction Equipment Company’s excavator product family was spun off to form the standalone company LBX Company, or Link-Belt Excavators. Today, Link-Belt Excavators is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Heavy Industries based in Lexington, Kentucky, that produces Link-Belt-branded excavators, scrap and material handlers, demolition equipment, and forestry equipment.
Link-Belt Cranes is also a wholly owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Heavy Industries today and also resides in Lexington, in a 770,000-square-foot (71,535-square-meter) manufacturing facility billed as North America’s “most modern crane facility.” There, Link-Belt Cranes designs, manufacturers, and sells rough terrain, truck terrain, all terrain, telescopic truck, lattice crawler, lattice truck, and telescopic crawler cranes.
With Melvin Porter serving as CEO and president, Link-Belt Cranes has invested tens of millions in recent years to expand its factory and manufacturing processes. For instance, the company opened a 30,000-square-foot (2,787-square-meter) training and quality assurance center in 2016 to serve its distributors, crane owners, and employees. More recently, Link-Belt Excavators broke ground in June 2018 on a 25-acre piece of land in Lexington for a new Customer Experience Center.