MADE IN HAMILTON
20TH CENTURY
INDUSTRIAL TRAIL

SITE 10
BERLIN MACHINE WORKS, 1908

At the south end of Albemarle Street, on the other side of the tracks, is the former site of one of the city's earliest large machine manufacturers. The Berlin Machine Works of Beloit, Wisconsin opened this plant in 1908. At the time, the company was the largest manufacturer of woodworking machinery in the world. The building's elaborate brickwork resembles that of earlier industrial buildings, but important elements of modern plant design can also be seen, including steel construction and a saw-tooth roof.

In 1917, the P.B. Yates Machine Company bought the plant. In 1930, a portion of the plant was sold to A. H. Tallman and Brothers Bronze Company. This long-standing Hamilton company moved to Burlington in the early 1960s, where it still operates as the Tallman Brass Company. P.B. Yates sold another portion of the plant to Reid Press in 1937. This well- known printing and lithographing firm operated here until 1984.

You can still see a number of the original white terra cotta logos of the Berlin Machine Works on these buildings. They consist of a Berlin "B" set inside a cog wheel. When the Reid Press moved in they converted the "B" to an "R" by chiseling out the bottom of each logo.

"During the Great Depression my father and many other people had garden plots on P.B. Yates' property. Those lots kept people fed."
Ken O'Neill, retired steelworker.