Industries Along the Rutland

RUTLAND

The Howe Richardson Scale Company

In 1857, John Howe Jr., a Brandon foundry owner bought out a patent that placed a scale platform on ball bearings developed by Thomas Ross and Frank Strong and began manufacturing scales under the name of Howe Scale.

The scales were acclaimed for their accuracy and durability and won a prize at the 1867 Paris exposition.

The company diversified into making handtrucks and trailers and in 1873 a fire destroyed the company warehouse and offices and Howe Scale moved to Rutland to the site it occupied until 1982.

After World War II, with over eight hundred employess, Howe Scale became Rutland's largest manufacturing enterprise.

The company pioneered in scales for aircraft weighing and the largest scale was made to weigh the B-36 bomber.

By 1950, the Howe Richardson Scale Company of Rutland along with E. & T Fairbanks And Company of St Johnsbury accounted for about three quarters of the industrial scales produced in the United States.

Computer technology and tape-drive mechanisms rendered the Rutland foundries obsolete and they were abandoned in 1982.