E. R. Klemm manufactured a variety of lifting and metal-working machinery, including punches, shears, bending rolls, and a metal-cutting bandsaw. We have also seen the names E. R. Klemm Co. and Klemm Manufacturing Co. of Chicago. In 1936 that firm merged with J. H. Channon Corp., with the resulting business retaining the Channon name.

Emil R. Klemm was born in Prussia in 1859 and moved with this family to Chicago in 1866. Emil's father, William Klemm, was a machinist and engineer who established a business in Chicago under his own name where he manufactured stone jacks among other items. When Emil finished his schooling he struck out on his own and then in 1892 opened his own business here he manufactured stone jacks and windlasses. He soon began making hand-power punches, shears and bending rolls. He developed and manufactured a new type of crucible tongs. Meanwhile, William Klemm retired in 1906 and as best we can tell, Emil took over his father's business and merged it into his own.

From 1910-02-24 The Iron Age

In 1910 Klemm introduced a metal-cutting bandsaw that he had developed. This machine was a vertical bandsaw with a self-feeding table and a frame that inclined to the outfeed side so that longer pieces of pipe or bar could be cut without interference from the frame.

By 1916 Klemm was also servicing trucks. In 1917 he began manufacturing trucks of his own design. It appears that that effort stalled once the USA joined the ongoing Great War, and truck manufacturing was discontinued before the end of 1918. After that, the company kept a much lower profile. Emil died in 1928, by which time his son, Emil R. Klemm, Jr., had taken over the business. As already mentioned, in 1936 the Klemm company was merged into the J. H. Channon Corp.

Information Sources

• 1876 The Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago lists four people with the surname Klemm, including "Klemm William, machinist, r. 149 W. Huron". There is, of course, no listing for E. R. Klemm since he was only 16 or 17 at the time.
• 1897-05-29 Chicago Journal of Commerce and Metal Industries has an article on a patent bottle-filling machine from E. R. Klemm, 99-101 West Monroe street, Chicago.
• May 1902 The National Builder has an article on E. R. Klemm's new stone jack.
• 1906 Annual Report of the Factory Inspectors of Illinois lists E. R. Klemm, 103 W. Monroe st., manufacturers of stone jacks. They had no employees under 16 years of age, one female employee and 23 male employees. The 1913 edition of that report notes that they had 25 employees.
• 1910-02-24 The Iron Age has an illustrated writeup of the Klemm Metal Band Saw from E. R. Klemm, 103 West Monroe street, Chicago. A weight hidden with the column of the vertical saw pulls the sliding table forward through the blade.
• 1915-06-03 The Iron Age.

  Hoisting and Sheet Metal Working Machinery.—E. R. Klemm, 1447 West Austin avenue, Chicago, Ill. Catalogue. Illustrates and describes a line of hoisting machinery which includes windlasses and crabs of various types, punching and shearing machines, bending rolls and a tilting metal band saw. Reliance is placed upon engravings to describe the various machines in the catalogue, there being practically no text. An illustrated description of the tilting metal band saw which is made in two sizes having a capacity for 6 and 12-in. round stock respectively appeared in The Iron Age, February 24, 1910.

• 1916-12-21 The Iron Age.

  E. R. Klemm, 1439 West Austin Avenue, Chicago, Ill., is erected a two-story service station for motor trucks... to be added to his present plant. The second story will be devoted to manufacturing purposes and drill presses and other small machinery will be installed. The present plant is equipped with heavy lathes and finishing machinery.

• A 1918 book, Manufacturing and Wholesale Industries of Chicago is a pay-to-be-mentioned book of the type with sparse facts padded across as many words as possible. It includes the following biography.

  Emil R. Klemm

  Technical skill, initiative, and executive ability (blah blah blah)... and the business... is owned and controlled exclusively by him, the same being conducted by under the title of E. R. Klemm... and the... factory building now utilized was erected by Mr. Klemm for the purpose to which it is applied, its location being at 1447-55 West Austin Avenue. Here have been established the headquarters of a very prosperous industry in the manufacturing of stone jacks, windlasses, hoisting crabs, pole-pullers, hand-power punches, shears for boilermakers and sheet-metal workers, etc., plate bending-rolls, pipe clamps, I-beam clamps, forged hangers, rods, stems, etc., besides many other mechanical devices, including an improved type of crucible tongs. Along these varied lines was developed the original industry but its province has been notably expanded, in the manufacture of the Klemm motor trucks...... Another extensively used and unique product of the Klemm institution is the Klemm tilting metal band-saw...

  Emil R. Klemm, founder and owner of this important manufacturing business, was born in the ancient city of Magdeburg, Prussia, on the 19th of October, 1859, and is a son of the late William Klemm, who came from Germany to America with his family and established a home in Chicago in 1866. William Klemm... was an ex-machinist and mechanical engineer.. ...until his death, in 1915...

  The first factory of the late William Klemm was situated in the alley between Madison and Monroe streets, about midway between Franklin street and Fifth avenue. Here he initiated the manufacture of the first stone jacks ever made in the United States, and he had developed a prosperous business at the time when the historic Chicago fire of 1871 occurred, it having been his misfortune to have not only his factory but also his home entirely destroyed in this great conflagration. After the fire he resumed operations, at first utilizing as his workshop a mere shed that was situated in Messinger's stone yard, on Franklin street, near Van Buren street. In 1877 he removed to the corner of Market and Van Buren streets, where he employed fifteen mechanics and manufactured a general line of machinery, in addition to the stone jacks. In 1892 Mar. Klemm removed his factory to a site on Desplaines street, near Jackson boulevard, and later larger quarters were secured at the corner of Lake and Desplaines streets, where he continued operations until his retirement in 1906. In the latter years he employed in his factory an average of about thirty mechanics, and from local limitations that trade was extended into the most diverse parts of the United States. ...

  Emil R. Klemm was not set seven years of age at the time the family home was established in Chicago... In 1892 he became actively identified with his father's manufacturing business, to which he was the virtual successor, and from the same he has developed the large and successful enterprise...

  Though, as previously stated, Emil R. Klemm is the virtual successor to the business of his father, it is to be recorded that, with a financial reinforcement consisting of his own savings, amounting to six hundred dollars, he engaged in the manufacturing business in an independent way in the year 1892. His first factory was established at 99-101 West Montrose street, according to the old system of Chicago street numbering, and there he initiated operations with two employees and one apprentice. He began the manufacturing of stone jacks, windlasses and other special machinery, and his factory had but sixteen hundred square feet of floor space. Eighteen months later the floor space was increased by about one-half and four more mechanics were employed. At this location the business was continued five years, and then removal was made to 103-7 West Monroe street, where a floor space of forty-eight hundred square feet was made available. Here the constantly expanding business was conducted until the present modern factory was completed and occupied, in 1911. The site was purchased by Mr. Klemm in the preceding year and upon the same he erected a substantial two-story building specially designed and equipped for his use. This plant affords a floor space of twenty-six thousand one hundred square feet, and here steady employment is given to a force of forty workmen, including many highly skilled machinists. In 1914 Mr. Klemm began his manufacturing of motor trucks, and this branch of the business promises to become one of major importance, the trucks having met with such appreciative demand that in 1917 it was found expedient to build an addition to the factory and to gain five thousand square feet of extra floor space specially for the manufacture of motor vehicles. Mr. Klemm is the inventor and patentee of the tilting metal band-saw, of which mention has been made, and also of an improved type of wagon wrench. ... The average annual sales now aggregate about one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.

• 1922 Engineering Directory lists "E. R. Klemm, 1445-55 W. Austin Ave., Chicago, Ill." as makers of machines, band saw, metal; jacks, lifting; jacks, stoneyard and quarry; and winches and windlasses.
• 1924 list of Domestic and Foreign Corporations lists "E. R. Klemm Company / 1445-55 W. Austin Ave., Chicago. (President) Emil R. Klemm, 1121 Lorel Ave., Chicago. (Secretary) George R. Klemm, 1054 N. Lockwood Ave., Chicago. (Authorized capital stock) $25,000".
• A 1930 issue of The Iron Trade Review. "CHICAGO-Klemm Mfg. Co. has been incorporated with $100,000 capital by Wilbur A. Austin, 718 West Sixty-third street, to engage in general machine shop business."
• 2010 book, >American Cars, Trucks and Motorcycles of World War I, by Albert Mroz, page 195. "E.R. Klemm of Chicago, Illinois, has been listed as a manufacturer of automobiles when by all evidence not a single car was ever built by his company. Instead, Klemm built heavy trucks and built them very briefly during 1917 and 1918." This book goes on to describe Klemm's trucks.
• Undated catalog: "E.R. Klemm : manufacturer of stone jacks, windlasses, hoisting crabs, special machinery."
• The National Museum of American History has a page on trade catalogs from J. H. Channon Corp., which mentions the Klemm-Channon merger.
• FindaGrave.com page on Emil R. Klemm.