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Crane Avenue

Crane Avenue is named for Richard Teller Crane

Richard Teller Crane

Crane Avenue runs off Erie Street as the entrance to the only building on the street, Crane Canada Inc. for which it is named. The Crane name originates with Richard Teller Crane (1832-1912), founder of the U.S. parent company in Chicago.

The Stratford Crane plant and Crane Avenue were built in 1961-62 and the plant officially opened in September 1962 by the Hon. J. Waldo Monteith of Stratford, who was then the member of Parliament for Perth County, and the minister of national health and welfare in the John Diefenbaker government.

Built as the Crane Steelware Stratford Division, the plant originally manufactured porcelain-enamelled steel plumbing fixtures, bathtubs, lavatories and laundry sinks. Eventually, the manufacture of acrylic-faced fibreglass reinforced plastic baths, shower stalls, whirlpool baths, sunken baths and bar sinks became part of the Stratford operation's product line.

The modern plumbing and bathroom fixtures now made at the Crane plant in Stratford are a far removed from the salad days of Richard Teller Crane, who in 1855, at age 23, was the founder and sole employee of the R. T. Crane Brass and Bell Foundry in Chicago. He housed his foundry in a wooden shed on a comer of his uncle's lumberyard.

By 1865, he had a new factory and was turning out everything from fire hydrants to steam engines and elevators. Crane made thousands of elevators and was one of the major names in that field for 30 years, until the company was sold to the Otis Elevator Co. Source: Streets of Stratford 2004

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