Early History

The company's origins date to 1929 when Rudolph F. Bannow, president of Bridgeport Pattern and Model Works, enlisted his customer and friend, Magnus Wahlstrom, to jointly develop an electric hedge clipper. The two worked together on the hedge clipper for over a year when the project was put on the back burner because a company called Atlas Tools asked them to develop a special type of milling attachment. Bannow and Wahlstrom developed the tool, a "portable self-contained horsepower high-speed milling attachment," which they called the Model C Head upon its introduction in 1932. Despite the drastic decline of the U.S. economy at the time, the tool proved itself to be very versatile in metal shops and soon became a commercial success.

Bannow and Wahlstrom continued to perfect their product and, in 1936, offered a customer a Model C Head that ran on horsepower and incorporated a quill. Again, its versatility in metal shops made it a commercial success. According to company materials, however, "many of their customers had complimented them on their milling head, but expressed their displeasure at having to use an old piece of equipment or make something on which to mount the milling head." The next logical step for Bannow and Wahlstrom was to develop a machine on which the Model C Head could be mounted.

The first drawing of the machine--which was to become a permanent fixture in metal shops throughout the United States--was sketched by Bannow on the back of a paper bag. Actual development took several years, and in August 1939, the company delivered the first machine to Precision Casting Company of Syracuse, New York. Originally marketed as a "Vertical Knee Type milling machine," the $995 tool soon became known simply as the "Bridgeport."