Abe Zimmerman started small. In 1895, he bought a tiny blacksmith shop in Lancaster County with just $2,000 in borrowed capital. He wanted to help local farmers. So he built a freeze-proof gasoline engine that wouldn't crack during brutal Pennsylvania winters. It worked. The Franklin Street plant soon bustled with workers pouring molten iron and machining parts for feed mills. Then came 1940. The company bought Edwin Nolt's design for a mobile, automatic self-tying baler, which solved a massive labor bottleneck on American farms. One operator could now package hay without a crew.

The brick and timber buildings actually tell a gritty story of industrial expansion. Walk the site. You can easily track the physical shift from a provincial foundry to a global manufacturer. They added the machine shop in 1903. Soon after, a massive erection building went up to handle heavy assembly. But they didn't just build balers. Workers also turned out heavy-duty rock crushers, circular wood saws, and massive cast-iron engines. Sperry Corporation bought the outfit in 1947. Even so, this complex stayed the brain of the company. Ultimately, these structures stand as a physical monument to the rural sweat that fed a growing nation. Not bad for a repair shop.