Founded in 1877 as the Milwaukee Hay Tool Company, making hay tools and dairy barn equipment.

Founded the Milwaukee Malleable & Grey Iron Works in June 1899 to control their supply of iron castings. Both entities expanded and the iron works began supplying castings to heavy machinery and farm equipment manufacturers.

Hardware and workshop vise line added in the early 1940s. The iron works product line continued to expand while the farm and dairy barn equipment lines were sold in the mid-1950s.

Renamed Milwaukee Tool & Equipment Company in November 1954.

A full line of heavy duty industrial vises and related items introduced in the early 1970s.

Information Sources

• 1887 Millard's Implement Directory lists Milwaukee Hay Tool Co., Milwaukee, as making a variety of agricultural items.
• 1914 book Wisconsin: Its Story and Biography, by E. B. Usher. These kinds of books, which were thinly disguised advertisements for the people and businesses written about, are normally filled with bloated, windy writing, and this book is exceptionally so. The following is heavily edited.

  William Gutenkunst...was the founder of the...Milwaukee Hay Tool Company, of which he is president and treasurer, as is he also of the allied corporation, the Milwaukee Malleable & Grey Iron Works, the extensive and contiguous plants of these fine corporations being eligibly situated at Layton Park... Many of the special mechanical devices manufactured by the companies... were invented and patented by Mr. Gutenkunst...

  William Gutenkunst was born in Milwaukee on the 6th of July, 1850, and is a son of Jacob and Catherine (Haas) Gutenkunst, both of whom were born in Baden, Germany... Forty years ago, on the 3d of May, 1873... he initiated his independent business career by securing modest quarters in the old gas house building, on Reed sreet, where he engaged in the repairing and rebuilding of sewing machines... and at the smae location he finally instituted the manufacturing of hay forks of his own invention. He admitted to partnership his younger brother, Charles A., and the firm title and William & Charles A. Gutenkunst was then adopted. The enterprise grew rapidly and finally removal was made to larger and more eligible quarters, at the corner of Park street and Eighth avenue. After the admission of the late Adam Loeffelholtz to partnership the business was conducted under the title of the Milwaukee Hay Tool Company, the two brothers having previously adopted and used the somewhat more unwieldy title of the Milwaukee Hay Tool & Manufacturing Company. In the manufacture of hay tools and corn huskers of superior order the business grew apace, and in 1893 the company obtained a tract of land in Layton Park, where its extensive and admirably equipped plant was erected and has still remained... [O]n the sixth of June, 1899, the Milwaukee Malleable & Grey Iron Works [was established]... [A]mong the principal products of the Milwaukee Hay Tool Company are the Leader litter carrier, the Milwaukee corn huskers and fodder shredders; steel and wood track hay-carriers, improved swivel-sling hay carriers, and cable-track carriers; hanging hooks for steel and wood tracks; rafter brackets, harpoon forks, grapple forks and derrick hay-forks; Standard wagon slings; pulleys and pulley blocks and conveyors; wire stretchers, tackle hoists, cattle stanchions, ornamental iron-fence pickets, etc. ...

  ...Mr. Gutenkunst learned his trade under the late Carl F. Kleinstuber, a pioneer machinist and manufacturer of Milwaukee...

• 1925 Hendrick's Commercial Register lists Milwaukee Hay Tool Co. in the category of Milwaukee Machinists & Founders, and as a provider of Alfalfa Forks; Hay, Grapple & Harpoon Forks; and Hay Derrick Forks.
• 1925-06-25 Iron Trade Review, page 1680, in the Obituaries column.

  George W. Schubert, general superintendent of the Milwaukee Hay Tool Co., died June 7, aged 58 years. He was born in St. Louis but lived in Milwaukee over 50 years.