125 Years Strong – An IUOE History

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS
that resulted in the “temporary organization”
of the N.U.S.E. (which had become the
International Union of Steam and Operating
Engineers by the time he wrote the letter):
N.U.S.E./I.U.O.E.
INITIAL LEADERSHIP
Steam engineers work on the Chicago
Sanitary and Ship Canal in 1895, the year
before the National Union of Steam Engineers
(which would become the International
Union of Operating Engineers) was formed.
When it opened in 1900, the 28-mile canal
project, the largest earth-moving operation
in North America up to that time, connected
Lake Michigan to the Des Plaines River and
allowed for the reversal of the flow of the
Chicago River. (Photos courtesy of the Chicago
Metropolitan Water Reclamation District.)
24 that year that the three steam engineers’
delegates met with the convention hall’s
engineer, Brother John R. Lyon, a member
of the Cincinnati engineers’ local union, to
further discuss forming a national union of
steam engineers.
Several years afterward in a letter in the
January 1918 issue of the International
Steam Engineer, the union’s monthly journal
for members, Brother Lyon conveyed this
account of that meeting and the subsequent
formal gathering on December 18, 1896,
“Upon the second or third day of the convention,
we received in the engine room a visit from
the three above named delegates, who stated
that they had called incidentally to visit as one
engineer would upon another socially but, more
prominently, for the purpose of inquiring if we
could inform them if there was such a thing as a
union of engineers in Cincinnati. We had to admit
there were none such, but we stated to them that
there was a body of engineers who held regular
meetings, but whose particular object was that of
promoting and protecting the city laws governing
the licensing of engineers. They then stated that in
their opinion it was about time for the engineers
of the United States to get busy and form a
national organization. We then invited them to
visit our organization on Thursday night, which
they accepted. At that meeting, the three delegates
stated their views, and after some discussion,
the writer was appointed a committee of one to
further confer with them with power to act.
“The next evening, the four of us met at the
boarding place of the delegates on Shillito Street
near Elm and drew up an informal set of rules,
claims and constitution and closed the meeting
by electing the following temporary officers with
instructions to obtain the necessary number of
signatures to obtain a national charter: Brother
DeLong of Chicago, president; Brother Smales of
Denver, secretary; Brother Tomsen of St. Louis,
first vice president; Brother Lyon of Cincinnati,
second vice president.”
(Brother Lyon’s initial tenure with the
N.U.S.E. was short-lived, as his local in
Cincinnati, which had been chartered by the
A.F.L. on June 13, 1888, as Local No. 18, “at
that time was not educated in the principles of
unionism,” as he explained, and therefore did
not initially join the national organization.
However, the local eventually entered the union
After the National Union of Steam Engineers (N.U.S.E.,
which would evolve into the I.U.O.E.) first organized on
December 7, 1896, in Chicago, its first officers selected
during a meeting on December 18, 1896, in Cincinnati were
(listed with respective hometown):
Charles J. DeLong (Chicago), President
L. P. Tomsen (St. Louis), Vice President
John. R. Lyon (Cincinnati), Treasurer
John M. Smales (Denver), Secretary
The following year during the first-ever N.U.S.E. convention
on August 9, 10 and 11, 1897, at Delabar’s Saloon in St.
Louis, the union’s first officers elected by delegates of its
locals were:
Frank Bowker (Boston), President
Frank Pfohl (Syracuse), First Vice-President
Samuel L. Bennett (Kansas City), Second Vice-President
C. J. Frealig (Detroit), Secretary
John M. Smales (Denver), Treasurer
J. M. Davis (Peoria), Trustee
M. J. Moran (Toledo), Trustee
Samuel Yetting (Kansas City), Trustee
on June 13, 1898, and continued as Local No.
18 until it was amalgamated with Local No.
906 on July 1, 1930, to become Local No. 20,
with which Brother Lyon remained active until
his death on March 24, 1942, at age 92.)
Essential Craft for The Nation
“The history of our organization
thus far is a history of unending
struggle. The beginnings of the craft
were bad; and the spirit in which the
calling was regarded, especially by
employers, and to some extent by the
men pursuing it, were even worse.”
– The International Steam Engineer, September 1912
Prior to December 7, 1896, when those 11
founding fathers took the first steps toward
forming the I.U.O.E., the steam-engineering
trade’s overall condition and financial prospects
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