By Kelsey VanArsdall, The Republic Reporter
From a two-story wood building to a 1.4 million-square-foot complex, Columbus Engine Plant of Cummins Inc. is steeped in rich history.
The company bought a Civil War-era house, near Fifth and California streets, to use as the headquarters in the 1920s from Emerson-Brantingham Implement Co.
Over the years, the building housed the office of engine maker and company co-founder Clessie Cummins. It has undergone 26 expansions, including extensive work in the 1940s during World War II.
Part of the plant, also known as Plant 1, is being used for machining heavy-duty cylinder heads and blocks, employing about 630.
But about 500,000 square feet of the facility off Central Avenue will be used to produce light-duty diesel engines for DaimlerChrysler, Cummins announced Wednesday.
Boom days
Management offices moved out in the 1960s, and the plant was expanded by 60,000 square feet. Into the early 1970s, the plant operated at perhaps its highest levels.
"There were probably around 2,000 employees," said 38-year employee Rudy Baker.
"It was a big plant then."
Baker, a Diesel Workers Union official, worked on the injector line at Plant 1 until its heavy-duty manufacturing and assembly was moved to a plant in Jamestown, N.Y., in 2002.
"It was a good environment to work in, because the major hit (on CEP) didn't really happen until they moved things to Jamestown," he said.
"And it didn't really affect me, because I was a union official."
Baker works at Cummins Fuel Systems Plant.
Columbus Engine Plant also downsized employment in the early 1970s.
"The company was looking to diversify and get manufacturing out to different areas," said Baker.
The plant was expanded and renovated again in 1996.
The original two-story, wooden structure remained as expansions and renovations boomed around it, including office buildings and a cafeteria, but it was demolished in 2005 because of maintenance costs and safety issues.