Description:
The Rich Manufacturing Corp. was among Battle Creek's earliest automotive parts suppliers, manufacturing valves for internal combustion engines for both civilian and military application. At its peak during World War II, the Battle Creek company turned out 25 million valves. The plant on Elm Street, shown here in the 1950s, had been adapted from the former Battle Creek Brewing Co. George R. Rich founded the company in 1934, although by then he'd already left his mark on local industry, having founded in the Rich Steel Products Co. in 1915. That company, sold to Wilcox Corp., would go on to form the nucleus of Eaton Manufacturing Co.'s local Valve Division. At his funeral services at First Congregational Church on Nov. 27, 1951, Mr. Rich's industrial genius was compared to that of Henry Ford, Walter Chrysler, W.K. Kellogg and C.W. Post. Sterling Aluminum Products acquired the company in 1960, then sold it to Federal-Mogul Corp. in 1965. Fed-Mogul closed in plant in February 1971.
