Edwin Rutenber & Western Motor Company

 

In 1900 a new industry came to Logansport, Indiana and opened a new foundry on the west side, at the west end of Wheatland Avenue at Center Street and Western Avenue. It was known as the Logansport Foundry Company. A year or two later, two men who had been living in Chicago came to the new foundry. They were Edwin A. Rutenber and Henry D. Rutenber.

Ed was a clever designer and had invented a new multi-cylinder motor. Henry, his older brother, was a skilled pattern maker and made patterns for his brother's designs. The new motor became so popular that the foundry firm was re-organized and became the Western Motor Company.

The Western Foundry buildings in, Logansport, Indiana photo dated 1916

The Rutenbers and James F. Digan, the practical foundry man of the company, developed a method of casting a four-cylinder motor in one piece or "en bloc", to use a technical term. It became immensely popular.

Ed Rutenber wanted to build complete automobiles. He enlisted the help of two Logansport men - Lem Coppock and Charles S. Ferguson. The two men, working in Ferguson's barn, produced a car that ran satisfactorily. The hish body reaching fully six feet above the ground had no top. And, no one knew how fast it would run, because speedometers weren't made at that time.

The high body style wasn't new. In fact it was the popular style of the day and there were many cars of that type in town.

Rutenber and Coppock used a four-cylinder standard Rutenber motor for the car. Joe Amen, a local carriage maker, built the body. The group had ambitious plans for the establishment of a company to manufacture cars on a large scale, but those plans never materialized.

During the summer of 1902 the firm produced 10 automobiles. One of those was known to have been designed for C. W. Swift of the famous Chicago meat packing house. 

It was Rutenber's first and last series of automobiles. The comapny did, however, become famous as an engine builder.

In 1973, the Smithsonian Institution, United States National Museum, in Washington D.C., accepted a Rutenber engine into its collection, with the understanding by descendants of the Rutenber family that the engine might not be on display, but would be properly preserved and stored. (Copies of the correspondence between the Smithsonian and the Rutenber relatives are included in the Cass County Historical Society archives.)

Edwin Aubert Rutenber died in 1962, in Greenville, Michigan. He is buried there - in Forest Home Cemetery. His wife, Lorayne rests next to him.

The Rutenber home aka the "Rutenber Mansion" still stands on the NE corner of Helm Street and Park Avenue in Logansport, Indiana. 2021 photo - credit Jerry Wolfe.