How a Sawmill Repair Shop Built America's War Machine

In 1859, a machinist named John Bonnell opened a repair shop for sawmills and grist mills at the bottom of Lake Winnebago in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. What grew out of that shop became Giddings & Lewis — the machine tool builder that armed the Arsenal of Democracy, pioneered numerical control, absorbed the company that invented the modern machining center, and outlived nearly every American rival it ever had. This documentary traces the full 167-year arc. The Trowbridge brothers turn a repair shop into the Novelty Iron Works by building one of Wisconsin's first iron foundries. Two investors named Giddings and Lewis put their names on the incorporation papers in 1895 and vanish from history while their company becomes the character in the story. The 1921 bet that abandoned woodworking for horizontal boring mills. The 1934 stock offering in the depths of the Depression. The World War II years, when Fond du Lac machines bored the gun mounts, turret rings, and landing gear of the American war machine. Then the harder chapters. The 1950s gamble on Air Force-funded numerical control and the Numericord — a bet on iron and code that competitors dismissed as a laboratory toy. The 1970 loss that exposed the most cyclical industry in America. The fourteen-month strike of 1975–76, when 323 permanent replacement workers crossed the picket lines, the returning strikers were placed on a recall list, and the fight went all the way to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The Rust Belt collapse that killed Bridgeport, Monarch, and Warner & Swasey while Giddings & Lewis passed through AMCA International, spun back out in 1989, and went hunting — swallowing Cross & Trecker (and with it Kearney & Trecker, builders of the Milwaukee-Matic II, the world's first machining center with an automatic tool changer) in 1991, then Fadal Engineering, maker of the best-selling American VMC, in 1995. And the climax: April 1997, when Harnischfeger Industries launched a hostile takeover at $19 a share, and the board of a 138-year-old American company found its white knight in Thyssen of Germany — the country its machines had once helped defeat. From there the story runs through ThyssenKrupp, MAG Industrial Automation Systems, the shutdown and unlikely revival of Fadal, and the 2013 acquisition by France's Fives Group, which still builds the largest and most precise metal-cutting machines in the Western Hemisphere on the same Fond du Lac ground — hydrostatic tables floating 50-ton workpieces on a film of oil, and a 2026 gantry installation that required 400 yards of concrete and 200,000 pounds of rebar just for the foundation. The video also covers the asbestos litigation that shadows the company's legacy, and the workforce that fell from over 1,000 to roughly 260 while the company refused to die. Subscribe to Trade Archive for the stories behind the machines and companies that built the modern world. Sources Envision Greater Fond du Lac. "Fives Giddings & Lewis Announces Major Equipment Investments and Facility Upgrades to Support Growth." April 2026. Fives Group. "Fives Giddings & Lewis Company Overview." 2023. Fives Group Corporate Platform. "Precision Boring Mill Solutions — Giddings & Lewis." Accessed 2026. Fives Group Corporate Platform. "Giddings & Lewis Vertical Turning Centers." Accessed 2026. FundingUniverse. "History of Giddings & Lewis, Inc." International Directory of Company Histories. Giddings & Lewis, Inc. v. NLRB, 675 F.2d 926 (7th Cir. 1982). Los Angeles Times. "Machine Tool Maker Fadal Acquired." April 1995. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "Paris-Based Fives Group to Acquire Giddings & Lewis." March 2013. New York State Supreme Court, Schenectady County. McCune v. Fives Giddings & Lewis. Asbestos litigation filing, May 2024. The New York Times. "Thyssen of Germany to Buy Giddings & Lewis for $675 Million." April 1997. The Wall Street Journal. "Harnischfeger Launches Hostile Bid for Giddings & Lewis." 1997. VintageMachinery.org. "Giddings & Lewis — History and Machinery Catalogs."