Ellwood Ivins Tube Works Company

In the 1920 U.S. Census, I noted that several people in La Mott, including members of the Fields family, worked at a place called the "Tube Works." A couple of years before his death, I spoke with Mr. Fields about this business as I thought he would be able to give me some insight as to what this company was all about. The complete name of the company was the Ellwood Ivins Tube Works. It was built in 1993 and first put in operation in 1894 according to the Directory of Iron Steel Works of the United States (1939).

Mr. Fields recalled how the company was located at the corner of Valley Road and Coventry Avenue in Melrose Park. After doing a bit of research at the Old York Road Historical Society, the local libraries and some archival work for the Cheltenham Twinning Committee, I found additional information about the company to support what I learned in that informal interview with Mr. Fields.

According to an ad by the Ivins Company, appearing in an anniversary book about Cheltenham Township, three inch tubes were made and stretched and then were used to make helicopters, instruments, aeroplanes, refrigeration equipment, fishing rods and more. Mr. Fields' father worked at the furnaces (there were three) and Mr. Fields, himself, worked the soap tubs. All employess had to find new jobs when the Ivins Company filed for bankruptcy and closed in 1962.