Index

PRESERVING THE CLINTON ENGINES CORPORATE HERITAGE


	The Jackson County Iowa Historical Society Maquoketa, Iowa

In the 1950s and 1960s, Clinton Machine Company - later Clinton Engines, Inc. - using our resourceful people rose from the obscurity of the Iowa farmland to become the world leader in the manufacture of small gasoline engines. Later the business closed.


	Still later the City of Maquoketa, Iowa accepted a gift of the then dilapidated eyesore and began to demolish the ghost of a once grand lady. Many of our people expressed much regret at losing this unique building, a symbol to many “the good times.”


	In response the Historical Society negotiated with the City, an 11th hour reprieve was graciously granted, and on November 16, 2004, ownership of the building and grounds was formally transferred to the County Historical Society and an attempted miracle was undertaken.

Many thought the job impossible, but the Society began to resurrect the building to serve as an anchor pavilion for a new museum complex dedicated to all of our ancestors and how those resourceful people lived. It was a formidable task to showcase Midwestern historical development as a reminder that the Midwest was not and is not that generally perceived quiet pastoral farmland. For there was and is real thunder from those prairies in the form of more than 18 million small gasoline engines for use in thousands of chain saws, go-carts, outboard motor boats. lawnmowers, etc. and a host of other manufactured industrial products. The new complex would not only honor the lives of our settlers and farmers but also the thousands of area people who worked on the farms, in the cities, and at companies like Clinton Machine Company and the railroads and trucking and materiel companies that came together to build giants. Let’s fly through the salient years. (Click on thumbnails to enlarge)




	1950 - CE begins




		1956 - The Heydays




		2004 - Death’s Door


	Were the experts right? Was it impossible? Click HERE for some very IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS!


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