The Plant in which Cincinnati Millers are Made

The milling machine business of the Cincinnati Screw & Tap Co. was formed into Cincinnati Milling Machine Company in 1889 by Fred Holz, who subsequently sold out to Frederick A. Geier in 1905. The business was successful. In the mid-1920s they acquired the patents for centerless grinding and then worked with the Timken Company to perfect the technology. The resulting machinery allows Timken to produce automotive bearings that were both lower cost and higher precision than their predecessors.

Frederick A. Geier died in 1934, and although Geier's son, Frederick V. Geier, was felt by some to be too young, he took charge and ran the company for the next quarter century. The younger Geier had a college education, considerable experience as a machinist, and had served in the military during World War I when he fixed production problems with 75 mm cannon. During a trip to Germany in the early 1930s Geier realized that another war was inevitable and upon his return he aggressively expanded his company's production capabilities: by 1939 they were the largest in the US. He realized that the then-future Allies would not be able to machine the barrels of big naval guns, so he tooled up his factory to do just that. During the Second World War, all of the country's largest guns were machined by Cincinnati Milling Machine Co.

In 1970, having diversified beyond milling machines, the name was changed to Cincinnati Milacron. In 1974 they acquired Heald Machine Co. for their line of grinding machinery. In 1998 the machine tool business line was sold to Unova, and portions of that business operated as Cincinnati Machine Company. The remaining part of Milacron is now Milacron LLC specializes in machinery for the plastics industry.

Information Sources

• Advertisement in the April 1950 School Shop.
• A Treatise on Milling & Milling Machines Cincinnati Milling Machine Co. 1916, has the following paragraph on this firm.

  This illustration [above] is made from a scale drawing and shows the plant as it actually is today. The machine shop building is 810 feet long; combined length of all the buildings 1300 feet. The three-story front is 380 feet wide. The entire plant, exclusive of the power plant, has eight acres (350,000 square feet) of floor space. It is the largest plant in the world devoted exclusively to the manufacture of milling machines and milling cutter grinders.

• The January 1994 issue of Cincinnati Magazine has an excellent article on Frederick V. Geier.
• American Milling Machine Builders: 1820-1920 by Kenneth L. Cope, 2007, pages 64-69
• 1884 Cincinnati Milacron 1984, Finding Better Ways, © 1984 by the Cincinnati Milacron Co., Inc.