Patten Car Company

The Patten Car Company was begun in 1872 at Bath, Maine, by James Patten, a former boat builder. Patten’s plant consisted of six buildings:

— office
— foundry
— machine shop
— paint shop measuring 75' x 162' with a manually powered transfer table
— single story erecting shop 75' x 220' with eight tracks
— two-story erecting shop 75' x 150'

Patten employed 200 men and could turn out four freight cars a day and six passenger cars a month.

But 1872 was not a good time to be in the car building business, as the financial panic of 1873 brought on several years of depression, during which capital was not available for railroad expansion, and orders for cars dried up.

Patten went out of business in 1877.