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Louden Monorail System in the Auto Repair Shop

Buildings and structures completed in 1922Buildings and structures in Jefferson County, IowaFairfield, IowaIndustrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in IowaIowa building and structure stubs
National Register of Historic Places in Jefferson County, IowaSouth Iowa Registered Historic Place stubs
117 E. Broadway former Auto Repair Shop
117 E. Broadway former Auto Repair Shop

The Louden Monorail System in the Auto Repair Shop, also known as McGuire Motor Company and Crandall's Electric Service, is a historic structure located in Fairfield, Iowa, United States. The monorail system is located in a former auto repair shop along an alley between East Broadway Avenue and East Briggs Avenue. It is the rear, single-story, portion of the building at 117 E. Broadway Ave where the system is located. The storefront portion of the building, also historically associated with the automobile industry, is a two-story brick building built on a stone foundation. The east side of the central business district in Fairfield had become the center for automobile related businesses by the 1920s. Harley Carter bought this building in 1920, and had the monorail system, manufactured by the Louden Machinery Company, installed about 1922. The overhead material handling system is permanently attached to the east wall of the shop. It allowed the mechanics to more easily move the heavy engines and other parts to and from vehicles. The structure was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Louden Monorail System in the Auto Repair Shop (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Louden Monorail System in the Auto Repair Shop
West Broadway Avenue,

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Latitude Longitude
N 41.007777777778 ° E -91.969444444444 °
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Address

West Broadway Avenue 501
52556
Iowa, United States
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117 E. Broadway former Auto Repair Shop
117 E. Broadway former Auto Repair Shop
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R. Bruce and May W. Louden House
R. Bruce and May W. Louden House

The R. Bruce and May W. Louden House is an historic building located in Fairfield, Iowa, United States. Original construction is in a colonial revival style and the interior was remodeled in an art deco style in 1928. Louden sold the property in 1948, and it was broken into apartments in the 1960s. The house was built in 1905 and was the residence of R. Bruce and May W. Louden until 1948. The house is within walking distance of the Louden Machinery Company, as it was the custom at the time for factory owners to be close to their properties. He was the third president of the company in Fairfield from 1940 to 1951, when he was killed in an auto accident. . During that period the company produced overhead handling equipment for American industries during World War II. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.R. Bruce Louden was president of Louden Machinery Company when the firm was contracted to build the assembly line for the world's first [atom bomb], and also the [B-29 bomber], during World War II. The atom bomb assembly line project was so secret that Louden was never told of it during construction, and liaison with the Manhattan Project was through Louden Vice President R. R. Louden, as per one of Louden's grandchildren. In its heyday, Louden Machinery Company was one of the world's largest farm equipment manufacturers and was the largest shipper on the Rock Island Railroad. The founder, William Louden, was a prolific inventor with many inventions to his credit. His hay handling system (the first major invention)was a pulley system on a monorail used to move hay in the mow of the barn, and was the first commercially successful monorail system in the world.