Burroughs Adding Machine Company
This picture of the Burroughs Factory in Detroit, Michigan was taken in 1912, some
8 years after construction. It also shows the American Arithmometer Company
locations in St. Louis.
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Postcard from 1913
"BURROUGHS ADDING MACHINE COMPANY, FACTORY, AND GENERAL OFFICES,
DETROIT, MICH." "The Burroughs Adding Machine Company is located at Second
Avenue, the Boulevard and Burroughs Avenue. Occupies 2 City Blocks 7 1/2 Acres
of floor space. This is the largest adding machine factory in the world and its
products go to every country on the Globe."
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Postcard from 1919
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Post card date unknown.
" BURROUGHS ADDING MACHINE CO."
"Burroughs Adding Machine Company, Detroit, Michigan, is the largest manufacturer
of its kind in the world, building a complete line of adding, bookkeeping, billing, and
calculating machines. It was first organized as the American Arithmometer Company
in St. Louis, in 1886, by William Seward Burroughs and his associates to produce and
market the first practical adding machine, the invention of Burroughs."
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The Story of The Clover Leaf Express
On October 8, 1904, the American Arithmometer Company rented "The Clover Leaf Express" train to move employees and their families and Company machinery to Detroit, Michigan where a new facility had been completed. Leaving St. Louis was a precursor to leaving the American Arithmometer name behind a year later. In an effort to better memorialize W. S. Burroughs and capitalize on the reputation of the "Burroughs Adding Machine", the company name was changed to the Burroughs Adding Machine Company.
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An American Arithmometer Company employee was quoted as saying..."Card games and other amusements enlivened the trip, and the time slipped by all too rapidly. At one town in Indiana, where the train stopped for about 20 minutes, a number of men got off and headed for a lunchroom. An old farmer, who was carrying a bushel of apples, happened to be crossing the "line of march" about that time and thought that the men were coming after him. He dropped his apples and ran and did not show up again before the train pulled out."
