In 1875 Samuel Tower acquired a foundry and machinery repair business, which he operated for a couple of years before eldest son Isaac Lewis Tower joined the business, which became Samuel Tower & Son. In 1880 second son Ray Jay Tower, half brother of Isaac, came of age and joined the business and the father retired, the business becoming Tower Brothers. In 1882 R. J. Tower, then only 23 years old, took over the business which became the R. J. Tower Iron Works.

From 1887-88 Polk's Michigan State Directory

Prior to 1889, the primary business of this operation was sawmill and shingle-mill repair. In 1887 they were manufacturing a shingle mill drag saw, i.e., a reciprocating saw to crosscut bolts that are to be fed into a shingle mill. It seems likely as not that the business had been engaging in small-scale machinery manufacture for some years already.

In 1889 another Greenville man, Elonso J. Gordon, invented and patented what became known as the "Gordon Hollow Blast Grate", which force-fed air into a coal fire to make the fire hotter, and established the Gordon Hollow Blast Grate Co. to manufacture and market this invention. Much, if not all, of the actually manufacturing was subcontracted to the R. J. Tower Iron Works and that lucrative business occupied much of Tower's capacity until 1896.

In 1896 Tower designed and introduced a line of innovative edgers and trimmers, machines used to convert rough-sawn lumber straight from a sawmill into dimensional lumber. This line was distributed exclusively by Gordon Hollow Blast Grate Co., a business that was already selling their blast grates to operators of steam-powered sawmills.

The Tower edgers and trimmers were steady sellers for a list a couple of decades. The subsequent history of the company is a subject for further research.

Information Sources

• 1916 book, History of Montcalm County, Michigan, pages 444-5.

  The plant now know as the R. J. Tower Iron Works was first owned by the Tower family in the year 1875, having been purchased in December of that year by Samuel Tower, and old foundryman—the father of the present owner. The plant was operated by Samuel Tower two or three years when the late I. L. Tower, eldest son of Samuel, became interested in the business, the firm then being known as Samuel Tower & Son. This firm continued the business until February 1, 1880, when R. J. Tower, the present owner, became of age. Thereafter, until October 1, 1882, the two brothers operated the plant under the firm name of Tower Brothers. On October 1882, R. J. Tower, then twenty-three years of age, took over the business which has since been known as the R. J. Tower Iron Works, individually owned by R. J. Tower. Until 1889, repairing of the then numerous saw and shingle mills was the principal business of the plant. In the year last mentioned E. J. Gordon invented and patented what is now known the world over as the "Gordon Hollow Blast Grate," an apparatus used under steam boiler to force the fire and create steam in greater quantity and thus enable the mill or factory to accomplish much more work without enlarging its plant. The manufacture of these "Blast Grate Outfits"—as they are called—constituted almost the entire business of the R. J. Tower Iron Works, until 1896 when these shops began the manufacture of the "Tower" line of edgers and trimmers. These machines to go make up a part of the outfit of a large proportion of the saw-mills of the United States, Old Mexico, and many other foreign countries, and are sold exclusively through the agency of the Gordon Hollow Blast Grate Company of Greenville, Michigan. The R. J. Tower Iron Works began in June, 1915, to build auto trucks, having at this time, December, 1, 1915, just finished its first "Tower" truck. While this firm does not expect to do a business so immense as to crush all opposition, it is the intention that the "Tower" truck shall not disgrace its name...

  The R. J. Tower Milling Company...

  The R. J. Tower Electric Company...

• The Findagrave.com page on Ray Jay Tower has more than the usual amount of biographical information.