This company is known to have been in business from 1888 through 1922, and probably for longer.

From January 1922 Canadian Woodworker and Furniture Manufacturer

Information Sources

• The company was assigned a February 1888 patent for a circular ripsaw. The inventor was Abel D. Catlin of Bay City, MI.
• Ad in the May 1889 issue of "The Wood-Worker", for their self-feed rip-saw machine, plus lath, shingle, heading and stave machinery; lumber trimmers and edgers; gang slab slashers; steam and swinging cut-off saws; bandsaw scarfing machines; material handling equipment.
• MachineryBrochures.com has a "Chattanooga Catlin Keyseater" sales manual from this company. No date is given.
• The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Bureau of Archives and History has correspondence of South Mountain Mining & Iron Co., including the following entry: "Lyle, Lane, Sec’y, Chattanooga Machinery Co, Chattanooga, Tenn., l899".
• The North Carolina State University Library has, in its special collections, correspondence from the Biltmore Estate Forestry Department Manager's Records, including the following entry: "Chattanooga Machinery Co., 1902 - 1905 (6 sheets) Correspondence from Chattanooga Machinery Co. Chattanooga, TN. They wanted to sell Insulator Pin, Bracket & Cross Arm Machinery to Dr. Schenck." Dr. Schenck was the Biltmore Estate's forest manager.
• 1911 book Standard History of Chattanooga, Tennessee, by Charles D. McGuffey, page 177, in a biography of George Washington Wheland. "He is president of the Wheland Machine Works, vice-president of the Chattanooga Plow Company, and one of the principal stock-holders of the Chattanooga Machinery Company."
• Web searches turned up some of the above information. We found nothing in the Cornell "Making of America" archives or the University of Michigan "Making of America" archives. So far we have not uncovered any patents assigned to, or known to have been used by, Chattanooga Machinery Co. or Chattanooga Saw Works.
• 1926 Annual Report of the Tennessee Department of Labor, page 49, in a listing of companies inspected: Chattanooga Machinery Co., 8 male employees and one female employee.