Oliver F. Transue (1865-1925)

Class of 2026 – Industrialist

Oliver F. Transue was born December 10, 1865, the son of local industrialist Frank Transue.  He and his father contributed  much to the development of Alliance.   Oliver Transue grew up in Alliance and attended the local schools.  In 1895 he joined his father and Silas J. and Joe Williams in organizing the Transue & Williams Company, which specialized in drop forgings. The company was originally housed on North Union Avenue near the site that would become Alliance Rubber.  Before breaking ground on its West Ely Street plant in 1898, the company also operated for a time in the old Nixon shop, near the corner of Freedom and Patterson.  The company grew to become one of the most well-known enterprises in Alliance under his tenure as president and general manager. 

Transue & Williams Company played a key part in Henry Ford’s success story.  In order to bring his dream of affordable automobiles to the masses, Ford needed a lighter car, and he was searching for a steel that would be light but strong.  In 1906 Ford was looking for a company that would work with vanadium steel.  Transue was already making forgings for Ford, and he put Ford in touch with Joseph Flannery of Pittsburgh and Harry Ross Jones of United Steel Co. of Canton.  After some trial and error, the vanadium experiments were a success.  Stark County historian Edward Thornton Heald in 1949 calls this the “greatest single event in Stark County history, making Stark County the greatest center of electric-furnace alloy steel production in the world.”  It was all Transue & Williams could do to keep up with the forging orders.  Under Oliver Transue’s leadership, the company expanded into the metal stamping business in the early 1920s.

Transue also became president of the Buckeye Jack Manufacturing Company and the Buckeye Twist Drill Company.  He served as a director of the McCaskey Register Company and the Republic Stamping & Enameling Company, as well as Alliance First National Bank and the Midland Bank Company of Cleveland. 

Transue married Grace Fisher in 1887, and they were the parents of two daughters, Ruth Transue (1889-1978) and Margaret Transue (1891-1918).  The Transue’s beautiful home was built in 1904 at 1251 South Union Avenue, just south of Glamorgan Castle.

Oliver Transue was considered a generous man and much beloved by his associates.  He died at the age of 59 on October 19, 1925 at Lakeside Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio after a three-week illness.  His wife died in 1947, and they are both entombed in the Transue Mausoleum in Alliance City Cemetery.

(Sources: 1928 Blue; Heald, vol. II)