You are probably aware that Poughkeepsie was once known as a place where just about everything was made! Cars, computers, cough drops, and even indestructible pants once came from this city. In the 19th century right up through the mid-20th century, the Queen City on the Hudson had become a very attractive place to purchase a factory and build stuff to sell and make a fortune with. Some of the companies still exist today, but have taken their manufacturing elsewhere, while other companies have long since been forgotten. Did you know that there were three automobile manufacturers here at the turn of the 20th century? One of those was a small operation known as The Guilder Motor Truck Company, and even when it was here, nobody seemed to know about it.
Walter C. Guilder had been in the automotive industry since the beginning. Born in Toledo Ohio in 1877, he had begun as a toolmaker in his early years before becoming an engineer in the early work of automobiles. He first worked as an engineer for the International Motor Company in Pennsylvania and the Kelly Springfield Motor Truck Company in Springfield Ohio. In 1906 he designed the first auto truck for the Garfield Company, and very quickly became the man to bring the truck industry into play. In his later years he recalled the difficulty he had in convincing the Fire Department for the City of Chicago that the auto truck was a better option than a team of horses.
By 1918, Guilder had come to Poughkeepsie, and was working for a company called Knickerbocker Motors that was manufacturing tractor attachments. He had also engineered and built a plow that could be easily connected to a Ford Model T. Beginning in 1923, Guilder teamed up with the Schatz family and their Federal Bearing Company, working out of their factory on Fairview Ave making trucks and buses. The two companies even shared employees when big orders came in that needed to be rushed. He named his new company the Guilder Engineering Company. In 1927, the Poughkeepsie Eagle News wrote an article about Guilder and the amount of orders that were coming in for his buses and trucks. They also made note that “Not every person in Poughkeepsie knows Guilder trucks are manufactured here and that they are rated with the best in the country.” The modest workshop did seem to go mostly unnoticed by the majority of the city, as Guilder wasn’t producing flashy luxury cars like Fiats, but rather practical motor coaches and city buses.
Other than a few brief mentions in the newspapers and a small brochure that details some of the options that the company produced, there is very little to be found concerning the Guilder Engineering Company. The height of the company’s operation was in the late 1920’s, when there was a demand for his public transportation vehicles. Walter C. Guilder left Poughkeepsie by 1942 and moved to Vermont, where he died in 1945. There are very few known Guilders still in existence today.
References:
http://www.lathes.co.uk/guilder/
https://www.farmcollector.com/tractors/model-t-fords-zmlz14janzbea/
Poughkeepsie Eagle News – 27 Apr 1918, 3 Apr 1919, 20 Sep 1927, 15 Jan 1945
Images:
Guildertrucks-01 – Brochure from the Guilder Engineering Company – LH Collections
Guildertrucks-02 – Brochure from the Guilder Engineering Company – LH Collections
Guildertrucks-03 – Brochure from the Guilder Engineering Company – LH Collections
