The firm of Hooven, Owens, Rentschler, and Company manufactured steam and diesel engines in Hamilton, Ohio. Because the firm was frequently known by its initials, H.O.R., the Hooven is sometimes incorrectly rendered as Hoover, and the Owens may be mistaken for Owen.
History
Origin
The firm was the successor to the firm of Owens, Ebert & Dyer which went into receivership in 1876. In 1882, George A. Rentschler, J. C. Hooven, Henry C. Sohn, George H. Helvey, and James E. Campbell merged the firm with the iron works of Sohn and Rentschler, and adopted the name Hooven, Owens, Rentschler Co. In 1883 the firm began the manufacture of Corliss steam engines, producing a total of 700 such engines by 1901.
20th century, first part
By World War I, the Hooven-Owens-Rentschler Company operated the largest exclusive Corliss Engine plant in the country, employing nearly 800 men.
In 1928 the company merged with the Niles Tool Works to form the General Machinery Corporation. However, it continued to make diesel engines under the H.O.R. brand, and supplied many of the powerplants for United States submarines and liberty ships during World War II. General Machinery Corporation ranked 91st among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts. In the 1930s H.O.R. developed a double-actingtwo-stroke diesel engine, initially based on the German cruiser Leipzig's MAN engines but with eight cylinders instead of seven, expanded to nine cylinders in the final submarine version. The double-acting design produced more power from a physically smaller engine than conventional designs. However, H.O.R.'s double-acting engines, particularly those of USS Pompano, gained notoriety for their unreliability in the submarine force, where they were nicknamed "whores." Owing to the limited space available within the submarines, either opposed-piston or, in this case, double-acting engines were favored for being more compact. An inherent problem with double-acting cylinders, owing to the piston rod reducing the piston area on one side, is an imbalance in the force on each side of the piston. The H.O.R. engines were plagued by vibration and other problems as a result. This in turn overstressed the drive train and caused the gears to shed teeth, create torsional vibration, and frequently rendered the engine and gear train inoperable. As an example of the problems caused by the unreliability of the H.O.R. engines, Captain Charles Herbert Andrews of the USS Gurnard recalled concerning a war patrol in support of Operation Torch, "I only used three, saving the fourth for a spare. When two of them broke down in the Bay of Biscay, I cut the patrol short and limped back to Scotland." During World War II, all submarine H.O.R. engines were replaced by early 1943, usually with General MotorsCleveland Division engines or Fairbanks-Morse Model 38 engines. The wartime performance of the H.O.R. engines was so poor that Captain Tommy Dykers of the USS Jack said, "The H.O.R. engines saved the Japanese thirty or forty ships."
20th century, second part
In 1947, General Machinery Corporation merged with Lima Locomotive Works to form Lima-Hamilton Corporation, which, in turn, merged in 1950 with Baldwin Locomotive Works to form the Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corporation. BLH, Hamilton Div., moved to the Eddystone Pa. plant of BLH in 1959. BLH went out of business around 1966. An HOR combination steam engine is preserved in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. It is one of 12 units that were made for Mr. Ford for his Highland Parkassembly plant where he produced the Model T from 1908 until its production demise in 1927. This engine was removed from the Highland Park facility and placed in storage after the Ford Motor Company took up permanent residence at the giant River Rouge facilities to produce the Model A. Mr. Ford donated the steam engine to his Edison Institute as the cornerstone display in 1929. The Edison Institute later was renamed the Henry Ford Museum and is known today as "The Henry Ford".
