Illinois Iron & Bolt Co. made horizontal bench drills and "Bailey" vertical post drills, bearing the cryptic name "II&B Co". Beginning in 1881 they also made the Olmstead patent tire upsetter.

According to one source, "In 1853 a man named George Marshall opened a shop that manufactured and repaired reapers. By 1864 he acquired two (2) partners and a stock company was formed and incorporated. This later became the Illinois Iron & Bolt Company."

II&B was taken over by Julius Angelo Carpenter in 1868. Carpenter diversified their product line from reapers and mowers to "thimble skeins for wagons, sad irons, copying presses, seat springs, blacksmith tools, pumps and other articles with a national market". Carpenter died in 1880, but the company lived on. George P. Lord succeeded Carpenter (perhaps not directly). He also married Carpenter's widow. Lord earned notoriety for slashing wages and then fighting all efforts to organize a union and negotiate for fair wages.

According to an article in Suburban Chicago News, "By the late 1800s, when all of Carpentersville and the two Dundees had only 5,000 people, Illinois Iron & Bolt employed 2,000. It made farm machinery, flat irons, thimble skeins, presses and buggy-seat springs.

"The dawning age of cars and tractors made many of its horse-age products obsolete. II&B's business declined, and by the 1970s it had gone out of business."

Information Sources

• 1890 New York edition of Seeger and Guernsey's Cyclopaedia of the Manufactures and Products of the United States lists Illinois Iron & Bolt Co., Carpentersville, Ill., as makers of iron fence posts; copying press stands; car jacks; carrying jacks; jack screws; house-raising jack screws; locomotive jack screws; track jack screws; ratchet jacks; tripod jacks; blacksmith drill presses; upright drills; anvils; mandrels; hydraulic presses; tire benders; tire upsetters; carriage makers' vises; parallel vises; wagon jacks; press screws; wagon skeins; steel thimble skeins; and iron vases.
• 1899 New York edition of Seeger and Guernsey's Cyclopaedia of the Manufactures and Products of the United States lists Illinois Iron & Bolt Co., Carpentersville, Ill., as makers of hitching posts; copying press stands; sad irons; tailors' irons; clothes reels; ratchet jacks; tripod jacks; horizontal drilling machines; post drills; upright drills; blacksmiths' drills; hydrostatic presses; anvils; blacksmiths' tools; horse shoe vises; mandrels; rabbet planes; hydraulic presses; tire upsetters; wagon jacks; copying presses; press screws; tuyeres and fittings; wagon and carriage castings; wagon and carriage irons; carriage bolster plates; wagon skeins; thimble skeins; steel thimble skeins; lawn statuary; and iron vases.
• 1914-03-14 Domestic Engineering. "The Illinois Iron & Bolt Co., of Carpentersville, Ill., has purchased the right to manufacture the push nipple vise heretofore manufactured by the H. L. E. Peterson Mfg. Co., of Elgin, Ill."
• 1948 Index of Trademarks Issued from the United States Patent Office lists Illinois Iron & Bolt Co., Carpentersville, Ill., as having received the following trademarks:
  • S/N 75,084. 1909-08-31, republished 1948-04-20, Class 14, Anvils.
  • S/N 87,342. 1912-07-09, republished 1948-01-06, Class 19, Steel warehouse trucks.
  • S/N 96,679. 1914-04-28, republished 1948-06-22, Class 14, Anvils.
  • S/N 310,330. 1934-02-20, republished 1948-04-20, Class 14, Anvils.
  • S/N 526,687. 1948-04-20, Class 23, for Jack-screws (also 501,047).
  • S/N 526,689. 1948-04-20, Class 23, for Jack-screws (also 501,048).
  • S/N 526,708. 1948-02-17, Class 17, for Automatic coal stoker also 500,377).
  • S/N 526,713. 1948-07-06, Class 19, for Steel warehouse trucks (also 502,612).
• A web search reveals several sites that have historical information on this company and its community, of which II&B was the largest employer. The information here is abstracted from those sites.
• Carriage and Wagon Makers Machinery and Tools by Kenneth L. Cope, 2004 page 116