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Regarding Vulcan Soot: I poked around a bit and turned up not much. As to what Vulcan Soot did: Boilers tend to accumulate soot on the insides of the fire tubes. That insulates the tubes, impeding heat transfer from the fire into the water. Soot blowers are devices which use steam, compressed air, or something else to dislodge the soot and let it go up the chimney. The following is extracted from a history posted on the web site of SPX FLOW Products. The material in square brackets is interpolated from other sources, mainly archives of US patents. 1903 The Vulcan Soot Cleaner Company begins selling soot blowers for boiler cleaning. The company is located in Windber, Pennsylvania. 1904 William Eichelberger files patents for the boiler soot cleaner. The company moves its headquarters to DuBois, PA. 1905 The Vulcan Soot Cleaner Company is incorporated under the laws of New Jersey. Delos E. Hibner Sr. is both treasurer and manager. 1933 The Vulcan Soot Cleaner Company is reorganized as the Vulcan Soot Blower Company. [Patents issued in 1934 and 1935 to De Los Hibner Jr and assigned to Vulcan Soot Blower Corp. "a Pennsylvania Corporation"] 1937 Fred Brown is named president of the Vulcan Soot Blower Company. Chief Engineer Delos “Dee” Hibner Jr. becomes a vice-president. [Patents issued in 1940 and 1944 to Hibner and a Fred C. Arey. In 1940, Arey was said to be from Freeeport PA; in 1944, DuBois.] 1948 Continental Foundry and Machine Company acquires the Northern Equipment Company and the Vulcan Soot Blower Corporation. Each Company remains a division of Continental Foundry. 1952 Continental Foundry relocates the Copes product line and the Vulcan product line to a new location in Erie, Pennsylvania. The combined companies became known as the Copes-Vulcan division. 1955 Continental Foundry and Machine is purchased by the Blaw-Knox Company. 1968 White Consolidated Industries acquires the Blaw-Knox Company. Copes-Vulcan was incorporated as a wholly owned subsidiary. 1986 Swedish firm AB Electrolux Group acquires White Consolidated Industries. Copes-Vulcan is formally incorporated. 1994 AB Electrolux sells Copes-Vulcan to Citicorp Venture Capital Ltd. 1997 Copes-Vulcan sells its longtime soot blower operation (Vulcan). [But Copes-Vulcan continues in business making valves. I can't discover who bought the soot blower business.] *** end quoted material Nowhere in the available Sanborn maps can I find a reference to the Vulcan Soot Blower Company in DuBois. The only "V" entity is the Van Tassel Tannery. It appears, however, that they were active in DuBois from 1904 to 1952. Where in DuBois? Haven't a clue. Note that they arrived in DuBois 10 or more years before Milliron built what's now the Harley shop. Perhaps they rented space there once that building existed. It could be that Vulcan had no production facilities of their own. That is, they may have farmed out actual production of soot blowers to job shops, needing only office space for sales and design activities.

I worked for Ideal the summer they installed and painted those murals. I don't remember artists name but he was from sykesville and friend of Calvin Beam (or Bean) owner at the time. Anyway, the large front doors of the building were replaced with cinder-block walls and stucco - like material. He then painted directly onto that. I doubt this could have been disassembled and saved.

Ideal Products. Main office and plant in Sykesville.