The Star Foundry Co. of Albert Lea, Minn., manufactured power hammers beginning in 1907 and continuing into the 1920s.
Information Sources
- Carriage and Wagon Makers Machinery and Tools by Kenneth L. Cope, 2004 page 167
- A pair of YouTube videos show a Star Foundry power hammer being used to forge a railroad spike into a tapered pin: 1 2.
- 2009-05-02 Albert Lea Tribune has an article on the Star Foundry. The article references the 1997 book by Douglas Freund on power hammers, Pounding Out the Profits. The article names Arthur Alfred Koch, who started "building power hammers for use by blacksmiths, machine shops and manufacturing firms in Montezuma, Iowa, during 1903. By 1904 he had moved to Grinnell, Iowa, and then to Mason City, Iowa, where he established the Vulcan Iron Works. In 1907, Koch and his partner Fred Wells moved to Albert Lea and went into business as the Star Foundry Company."