Lambert Gas and Gasoline Engine Company


The Lambert Gas and Gasoline Engine Company was a company founded by John William Lambert in the later part of the nineteenth century as part of the conglomerate of the Buckeye Manufacturing Company.

History

Early in Lambert’s life when he was in his early twenties he had formed a partnership with his father, and under the firm style of J. W. Lambert & Company, The company was engaged in the manufacture of fork handles and spokes. In the later part of 1891 he moved to Union City, Ohio after failing in his initial attempt to make and sell "horseless carriages." There he ran an agricultural implement store, a grain elevator and a lumber yard. In 1893 Lambert came to Anderson, Indiana moving some of his machinery there. This was the nucleus for the factory plant he made in Anderson. The factory covered of brick construction and was equipped with modern machinery of the day. The company Lambert ran made farm implement equipment and stationary gasoline engines for farms and other commercial uses. In 1893 the company was incorporated under the firm name of the Lambert Gas and Gasoline Engine Company and the Buckeye Manufacturing Company. He employed about 250 people at the time.
The factory tooled up with equipment for the manufacture of automobiles in 1900 with the Lambert Gas and Gasoline Engine Company making the automobile engines and the Buckeye Manufacturing Company making the other automobile parts. The officers of the companies were B. F. Lambert as the president, George A. Lambert as the secretary, and John Lambert the treasurer and general manager. The capital stock of the companies was $100,000, which would be millions in 2008 dollars.
Before the Lambert Gas and Gasoline Engine Company built automobile motors they manufactured stationary engines. A partial description of the Lambert gasoline stationary engines were described in Gas, Gasoline and Oil-engines written by Gardner Dexter Hiscox in 1910 as:
There was a "Leaflet" given out by the Lambert Gas and Gasoline Engine Company on their engines giving directions to the operator. It was a guide to their gasoline engines giving special instructions for how the internal action of the engine was performing by just the sound of how it was operating.

Footnotes

Primary sources