On Commerce Street in Bridgeton sits a brick building that has seen better days. The brown ivy that hugs the red bricks surround boarded-up windows of an entryway to an office building that no longer is filled with people. Behind a fence that stretches through part of the property, a large building with busted glass windows stands in the background.

It is hard to believe that the building that housed the company — whose name meant sharp iron in Italian and was one of the bastions of manufacturing and innovation in the United States — could look frail.

An aerial photo of Ferracute Manufacturing Company.

The Ferracute Machine Company in Bridgeton was once a sprawling complex. With the iconic brick office building placed at the front, the rest of the land housed an erecting shop, a forge, pattern storage, pattern shop, woodworking shop, carpenter shop, and boiler room.

The path to the complex began back in 1873 after inventor Oberlin Smith sold an ironwork property he had with a previous partner. Oberlin and his brother Frederick partnered together and bought the Birdgeton property and incorporated a new business venture in 1877: the Ferracute Machine Company.

By many accounts, Oberlin Smith, who served as the company’s president and mechanical engineer, was as revered intellectually as other bright minds of the day, such as Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. Smith was the person who came up with magnetic recording, a process that would later be used in reel-to-reel recorders and eventually develop into tape cassettes and hard disks.

Arthur J. Cox is the co-author of the book “Ferracute: The History of an American Enterprise.” Cox, along with co-author Thomas Malim Cox, gathered an extensive collection of documents, photos, and other items from the company for their research. Cox says that Oberlin Smith was a well-respected, intelligent man who made Ferracute into a global power. The two have donated a lot of the findings to Rowan University and the Hagley Museum in Wilmington, Del.

“Smith was head and shoulders an above-average person when it came to finances, success, education, and business,” Arthur J. Cox said in an interview with NJ Advance Media this week. “He was a renaissance man in many ways in what he read. He consistently wrote articles for many journals here and abroad.”

“He was one of the pioneers of manufacturing certain kinds of machine tools which were metalworking presses. Metalworking presses are different from other machine tools in that they deform metal in certain ways. Other machine tools take metal away.”

Oberlin Smith and Ferracute employees together during a dinner

The presses made out of the company began with canning equipment that was sold and distributed to companies not only in the United States but Sweden, Japan, and Australia. Canning was not the only industry in which Ferracute created presses.

As Ferracute’s reputation began to spread across the county, the company sold presses and dies to some of the biggest companies in the world. Coin minting machines were made, with one order being made by the Chinese government at the time. In December, one of the rare coins made from the press was auctioned off for more than $1 million.

A fire burned down the factory in 1903, but the factory was rebuilt the next year. Business returned to normal, and the company began making presses for bicycles. Auto companies later followed in becoming significant buyers, with Ford being the first to purchase presses to be shipped to its plants for its Model-T cars. Other companies who bought equipment included Chrysler, General Motors, Eastman Kodak, Victor Talking Machine Company, and the United States Mint.

After the death of Oberlin Smith in 1926, his son took over the company and became the new president. When the Great Depression arrived, the company experienced financial troubles. In 1939, in a bankruptcy proceeding in Mays Landing, George E. Bass purchased the company. Cox said that Bass was instrumental in pointing the company in the right direction by designing and building machines that helped with the making and manufacturing of munitions to send to Europe during World War 2.

“First thing Bass did was retool, rebuild and modernize the company,” said Cox. “In a very short time, he supplied American arsenals, and to our Allies in Europe, particularly after Dunkirk when all was lost in munitions. They sent huge numbers of munitions manufacturing equipment to Great Britain, and it was used to make bullets to fight and down Hitler.”

George S. Bass is the son of George E. Bass. Bass, who is 88, said he still thinks fondly of the work his dad did while in Bridgeton.

Bass, who now lives in the New England area, has several fond memories about him and his father in the factory and the surrounding areas, including his father taking him through the factory and showing him the different areas to setting up football games at a nearby farm that were interrupted by cows entering the field of play.

George S. Bass said his father installed new equipment and constructed new buildings on the complex that led to nearly 700 employees working three different shifts at the factory in 1943. His father also was active in the community.

“He was a really nice man and tried to do nice things for Bridgeton,” Bass said. “He got $350,000 for the hospital and he was a member and one-time president of the Bridgeton Rotary Club.”

“I’ve been thinking about Bridgeton all the time. I took my two daughters a couple years ago. I also went down by myself and talked to a few people. Everybody did a great job during the second World War to help out in the effort,” Bass said.

After the Allies won the war, the soldiers returned to their jobs at the factory. Orders began to decline when new competition began to infringe on the company’s territory. In 1968, the Ferracute Manufacturing Company was sold to St. Louis-based Fulton Iron Works.

Once the factory closed its doors, time began to take its toll on the building. The structure was eventually included in the city’s Historic District and, in 1982, placed on the state’s Historic Register. Ten years later, it the National Historic Register. The city eventually purchased the property in 2007.

In an October 2007 preservation plan study, all aspects of rehabbing the building, from the roofs, to the office building, and the main machine shop were studied. The cost to fix the office building alone at the time could have cost up to $3 million.

There were some attempts at rescuing the grounds of the company. In 2014, a business was interested in developing the site as a location for fish farming and hydroponic farming for aquatic plants. However, the plan never came to fruition.

“People have tried to save the office building and reuse it for new office space,” said Penny Watson is a member of the “10 Most Endangered Historic Places” Committee for Preservation New Jersey. “That would be the best use of it, but it has deteriorated, and it will be expensive.”

Watson said Ferracute is an essential part of the city’s history and would like to see it saved.

“The people in Bridgeton have been working on it since it has closed, but the economics have just not been right,” Watson said. “We really care about it. I know the battle is not over as long as the building is still standing.”

For now, the building still stands as more modern structures continue to be built up and torn down. For Cox, he does hope that the building is preserved, and something is done to honor and recognize one of the great minds that called Bridgeton and South Jersey home.

“If they let that building fall down, it will be a sin.”

A side view of the old main office building on the site of the former Ferracute Manufacturing Company.

This article is part of “Unknown New Jersey,” an ongoing series that highlights interesting and little-known stories about our past, present, and future -- all the unusual things that make our great state what it is. Got a story to pitch? Email it to local@njadvancemedia.com.

Read More Unknown New Jersey stories like this:

Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.com’s newsletters.