Over Ninety Years Ago
Equipment Corporation of America, widely known as "ECA", was founded during March, 1918 in Chicago by three well known firms to enable them to expand their marketing area of construction, industrial and material handling equipment. The three Chicago firms included two already established dealers in this type of equipment; the third firm manufactured concrete mixers. They believed that there was a large demand in the Eastern part of the country for a capable firm to handle used industrial and contractors' equipment.
ECA was comprised of Chicago Builders Specialties Company, French & Allen and Marsh-Capron Manufacturing. Lakewood Engineering Company of Cleveland joined ECA shortly thereafter, to provide an outlet for their trade in equipment and machinery in the Midwest and Eastern states.
Office, warehouse and complete repair facilities were quickly established in Chicago, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The facilities at each plant included a machine shop and a blacksmith shop to manufacturer special parts and make emergency repairs. The plants featured extensive repair floor space served by heavy lifting equipment. While location and facilities have been changed and modernized over the years, the plants remained in each city until the Chicago plant was closed in 1954.
From the beginning, ECA was one of the first organizations to promote the rental of construction equipment. Nationally known as a spot buyer of equipment, ECA had the choice of most of the idle equipment throughout the country. ECA purchased individual equipment items as well as entire job spreads as we did at The Conowingo Dam when it was completed in 1928. With the companies complete repair facilities, ECA was able to do everything from minor repairs to complete rebuilds.
In 1981, in a move to better service our customers in the Washington, DC market, ECA opened a new facility in Upper Marlboro, MD. In 2000, to expand the company footprint north, ECA acquired Special Construction Machines, Inc. of Toronto, ON.
The Company Today
Today, with facilities in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Washington, DC and Toronto, ECA represents the finest equipment manufacturers in the world. ECA continues to maintain rental equipment fleets, a complete staff of service technicians and product specialists, field service support trucks and complete spare parts inventories in each location.
PITTSBURGH 412.264.4480
PHILADELPHIA 610.626.2200
NEW YORK/NEW JERSEY 732.888.5477
WASHINGTON 301.599.1300
TORONTO 416.787.4259
Copyright 2010 Equipment Corporation of America
800-PILE-USA
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Over Ninety Years Ago
Office, warehouse and complete repair facilities were quickly established in Chicago, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The facilities at each plant included a machine shop and a blacksmith shop to manufacturer special parts and make emergency repairs. The plants featured extensive repair floor space served by heavy lifting equipment. While location and facilities have been changed and modernized over the years, the plants remained in each city until the Chicago plant was closed in 1954.
