Source: News-Journal, March 3, 1941

OLD MACHINIST RETIRED FRIDAY

O.H. Fox closed a 45 year career as a mechanic in North Manchester industries Friday. He had reached the retirement age, and Friday was his last day at the Northfield Company, where he has been employed for several years. He has a home east of North Manchester and during the past few years has equipped it gradually with machine shop tools, in anticipation of the time when he would no longer be active. Friday he was pleasantly surprised with a nice gift from the management and fellow employees of the the Northfield factory.

Mr. Fox started work 45 years ago at the J.A. Browne & company plant, which operated a wagon parts factory, and also generated electricity for North Manchester under the name of the Browne-Mills Company. After a few years, he worked a year at the Dunbar heading Factory, then went back to the Browne plant. From there he went to the Syracuse Screen & Grille Factory where the Warner Brooder factory now is located. He was there fourteen years and then went back to the Browne factory. In the meantime he acquired an interest in the Fred Horne machine shop, where the Reahard Implement store is located on West Main street. The firm name was Horne & Fox, but Mr. Fox was never active in the business. Later he worked for the Diehl Machine factory at Wabash, later for the Baldwin Too Works in North Manchester, four years at Foster's at Elkhart, three years in the Pennsylvania Railroad Shop at Fort Wayne, and then came back to North Manchester as mechanic at the Cox Show Case Company of which the Northfield Company is the successor.

Mr. Fox has seen much of the industrial life of North Manchester in the past 45 years. He has seen once thriving industries become extinct, and others take their place. During the 45 year period North Manchester has changed in many ways. Dirt streets have been replaced with pavements. The automobile industry replaced the buggy, wagon and harness industry, with the kindred trades that went with them. Manchester College has developed in that period. The store buildings have been transformed from the village type harking back to the pioneer day, to buildings with modern fronts and equipment. In his own trade new types of machinery, much of it automatic, has replaced the machines he first used. Electricity is no longer generated in North Manchester, but comes here from generating plants many miles away. But despite all the changes there is al always will be need of good machinists such as Mr. Fox, for machinery has to be made, and after it is made, good mechanics are needed to keep the machinery running.