From l. to r., B&W’s Boilermaker superintendent Don Wallace, supervisor Eric Boggs, rigging engineer Steve Fox, construction manager Marty Crum, and L-744’s Steven Walters, foreman Stephen Ginley, Business Manager Martin Mahon and (kneeling) Gregory Pamer.
MEMBERS OF LOCAL 744 (Cleveland, Ohio) helped rig and mount the façade of a 150-horsepower cast iron front boiler built in 1876 by Babcock & Wilcox in the lobby of the company’s new corporate headquarters in Akron, Ohio.
The boiler was originally displayed in the Centennial International Exhibition at the first official World’s Fair in Philadelphia, where it won a gold medal. It was sold to a sugar refinery in New York before B&W repurchased it to exhibit at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition, celebrating the opening of the Panama Canal.
B&W wanted to display the boiler “to continue to build on our historical relationship with the Boilermakers,” said Mike D. Hidas, president and general manager, Babcock and Wilcox. The boiler will be painted and framed before the headquarters opens in late 2019.
