MADE IN HAMILTON
20TH CENTURY
INDUSTRIAL TRAIL

SITE 38
OSBORNE-KILLEY MANUFACTURING
COMPANY, 1884

You are now re-entering the 19th century industrial city. This factory's rubblestone building that fronts Barton street was originally constructed in 1876 as a malt house for Hamilton maltster William Osborne. It is one of the city's oldest surviving industrial buildings.

In 1884, Osborne became partners with engine and boileraker J.H. Killey, a former employee of the Beckett foundry nearby. Over the next few years, the firm expanded. A number of foundry buildings were added to the rear of these premises, a few of which still exist. These buildings housed the partners' two manufacturing operations- the Mona Iron Works and the Hamilton Scale Company. The Mona operation produced pumps, boilers and engines for a variety of uses. This company manufactured the steam engines and pumps for the Hamilton's second Waterworks installed in 1887.

In 1898, the factory changed owners and became the Smart-Eby Machine Company. It became the Smart-Turner Machine Company after another re-organization three years later. Until the late 1980s, workers here turned out all kinds of pumps for industrial and municipal use.

A series of buildings extending behind the original structure demonstrate the evolution of industrial architecture from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. The plant's architecture ranges from wood post-and-beam to steel frame construction.