Webb City Area Genealogical Society member John Lawhorn has shared a photograph of Webb Corp employees and a large bending roll machine they had manufactured for a company in Japan.
John went to work for Webb Corp in 1962, and this was the first project that he worked on.
The roller was used to bend up to 10-foot long pieces of steel for use in ship building and storage tanks, among other things.
An extra heavy rail car was built to transport this machine to the port in Houston for export to Japan, where three railroad bridges had to be rebuilt in order for this machine to make it to its final destination.
The company that purchased it used a method of melting ice to get the giant machine partially lowered into a pit where it would operate.
This bending roll was the first of three of that type that Webb Corp built.
John Lawhorn retired from Webb Corp. He worked there from 1962 to 2011, except for the two years (1963 – 65) that he was in the Army.