Editing Lima, Ohio (section)

==Economy==
{{more citations needed section|date=June 2013}}

===Oil===
[[File:Faurot Oil Well.jpg|thumb|Ohio [[historical marker]] outlining Lima's oil history with Faurot]]
With the discovery of oil in Lima in 1885, Ohio began what came to be called the "Oil Boom of Northwest Ohio". Discovery actually began in [[Findlay, Ohio|Findlay]], a city forty miles north of Lima. The discovery of natural gas deposits there in 1884 led to national marketing efforts advertising free gas, as Findlay's business leaders tried to "boom" the town. In 1885, Benjamin C. Faurot of Lima was one of hundreds of businessmen who visited Findlay to see the seemingly unlimited supply of natural gas burning day and night. Faurot owned the Lima Paper Mill. He spent $2,500 on energy consumption annually. Water for his operation was also a problem. So Faurot decided to drill in Lima – for gas or water. Faurot's first oil, found along the Ottawa River on May 19, 1885, was more accidental discovery than deliberate scientific experiment.

During the first week, the well produced more than {{convert|200|oilbbl|m3}} of oil. Faurot quickly organized local businessmen into a syndicate that would purchase oil leases from farm owners. The company was called the Trenton Rock Oil Company, and by 1886, had 250 wells from Lima to [[St. Marys, Ohio|St. Marys]], and west to [[Indiana]].

When the news broke that northwest Ohio had oil, [[Standard Oil]] of Cleveland decided to build a [[oil refinery|refinery]] in Lima. Unlike [[Pennsylvania]]'s oil, northwest Ohio's "sour crude" was high in [[sulfur]] content, smelling like rotten eggs, and customers shunned it. Lima's new Solar Refinery was charged with solving the sulfur problem. Until then, Standard bought and stored as much northwest Ohio crude as was possible to maintain their monopoly. It dropped the price of crude from more than sixty cents a barrel to forty cents in an attempt to discourage further production.

Oil drilling fever hit northwest Ohio and "boom towns" sprang up overnight. There is also a significant pharmaceutical industry in Lima, with new resident Lak Hotra opening up the cities first Walgreens. Additional crude glutted the market, and trying to slow production, Standard Oil lowered its price to fifteen cents a barrel. This decision had little effect on the large producers elsewhere, but the smaller Lima producers, whose oil wells could not keep up, found themselves severely hampered. Fourteen independent Lima producers formed a combine – the Ohio Oil Company. Eventually, it became [[Marathon Oil]], still located in Findlay.

Lima's Solar Refinery General Manager John Van Dyke and Herman Frasch, Standard's chemist, solved the distillation problem for sour crude by devising a method for removing the sulfur. The gamble that [[John D. Rockefeller]] took building pipelines and storage tanks for Ohio's sour crude paid off. By 1901, the excitement about Ohio oil slowed with the news of a [[Beaumont, Texas]], [[Spindletop|gusher]] producing {{convert|100000|oilbbl/d|m3/d}}.

In 1911, the courts declared Standard Oil Trust a monopoly and broke it into several companies. Between 1887 and 1905, the Lima Oil Field was a world-class producer, yielding {{convert|300|Moilbbl|m3}}. Lima was also a pipeline center. Within three years of the discovery of oil, a trunk line reached Chicago. Lima oil lit the buildings of the [[World's Columbian Exposition|1893 World's Fair]]. Production peaked in 1904, and then dropped off rapidly. By 1910, the field was regarded as virtually played out. Still, the Lima Refinery has survived, continuing to operate for more than 125 years under a succession of owners—Solar Refining Company (1886), a subsidiary of [[Standard Oil]] until the breakup in 1911, [[Standard Oil of Ohio]] (1931), [[BP]] (1987), Clark USA (1998), [[Premcor]] (2000), [[Valero Energy Corporation]] (2005), and most recently [[Husky Energy]] (2007).<ref>{{cite web |title=Husky Energy to Buy Valero's Refinery in Ohio |url=http://www.resourceinvestor.com/2007/05/02/husky-energy-to-buy-valeros-refinery-in-ohio |date=May 2, 2007 |first=Dina |last=O'Meara |work=Hard Assets |agency=Canadian Press |access-date=March 24, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140324201911/http://www.resourceinvestor.com/2007/05/02/husky-energy-to-buy-valeros-refinery-in-ohio |archive-date=March 24, 2014 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===Railroads===
For most of its history, smokestack industries and a [[Blue-collar worker|blue-collar]] [[work ethic]] defined Lima. Nothing played a bigger part in shaping the city's self-image than its connection to railroads and railroading – as a Midwestern rail hub and even more as home to the [[Lima Locomotive Works]], whose products for more than 70 years carried the city's name globally.

The first [[locomotive]] appeared in [[Allen County, Ohio|Allen County]] in 1854, brought in from [[Toledo, Ohio|Toledo]] as freight on the [[Miami and Erie Canal]]. Named the Lima, the engine was used on construction of the county's first railroad, the [[Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway|Ohio and Indiana]]. East-west passenger service to Lima began in 1856, when the Ohio & Indiana consolidated with the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago. North-south passenger service began in 1858 on the Dayton & Michigan Railroad. Machine shops for the Dayton & Michigan were built in Lima by 1860, and for the [[Lake Erie and Western Railroad]] by 1880. By the early years of the 20th century, the railroad shops employed 1,000 people in Lima.

In 1906, an average of 143 trains and 7,436 cars, carrying 223,080&nbsp;tons of freight, passed through Lima every 24 hours. In addition, 49 steam and 28 electric trains landed passengers in Lima daily. Lima service on the electric interurban Ohio Western Railway began in 1902 and Lima became the hub of an interurban network that reached [[Toledo, Ohio|Toledo]], [[Cleveland]] and [[Cincinnati]] as well as [[Fort Wayne, Indiana]]. In 1920, Lima was served by five steam railroads and Allen County by eight, in addition to five electric interurban lines.

For years, Lima was a crossroads for famous passenger trains including the [[Nickel Plate Road]]'s ''Clover Leaf'' ''Commercial Traveler'' and the [[Erie Railroad]]'s ''[[Erie Limited]]'' and ''[[Lake Cities (Erie Railroad train)|Lake Cities]].'' The Erie Railroad had its own train station. The other train companies used the [[Lima station (Pennsylvania Railroad)|Pennsylvania station]]. [[Pennsylvania Railroad]] train such as the ''[[Admiral (train)|Admiral]],'' ''[[General (train)|General]],'' and ''[[Manhattan Limited]]'' made stops in Lima's Pennsylvania station.<ref>Pennsylvania Railroad timetable, August 1950, Tables 8, 9 http://streamlinermemories.info/PRR/PRR50TT.pdf</ref>

Railroads began to cut back passenger service to Lima during the [[Great Depression]]. Electric interurban service ceased in 1937. After a brief boom for railroads during World War II, passenger service declined sharply in the 1950s. The Nickel Plate Road ended scheduled passenger service to Lima in 1959. The formerly elite ''[[Broadway Limited]]'' began making stops in 1968 after the [[New York Central]] and the Pennsylvania railroad merged to form the [[Penn Central]]. The [[Erie-Lackawanna]] ran its last train into Lima in 1970 and the [[Baltimore & Ohio]] and the [[Penn Central]] their last in 1971. Freight still moves over most of the historic rail routes in and out of the city, but the last passenger train to stop in Lima was the ''Broadway Limited'', then operated by [[Amtrak]], on November 11, 1990.

Currently, there are only a handful of railroads that serve Lima. The Chicago, Fort Wayne, and Eastern and the Indiana and Ohio railroad are owned by [[Genesee & Wyoming]] and are in the north and east parts of town. [[CSX Transportation]] runs through town frequently and the [[Norfolk Southern Railway]] has one train each day to Lima. The [[R.J. Corman]] Railroad/Western Ohio Line runs southwest from town on former [[Erie-Lackawanna]] trackage.

===Lima Locomotive Works===
{{Main|Lima Locomotive Works}}
The [[Lima Locomotive Works]] – "the Loco," as it was commonly called in Lima – had its beginnings in 1869 when John Carnes and four partners bought a machine shop that was called the Lima Agricultural Works. The company initially manufactured and repaired agricultural equipment, then moved into the production of steam power equipment and [[sawmill]] machinery. The shop designed its first narrow-gauge steam locomotive in 1878. The same year, the shop first worked on a geared locomotive designed by [[Michigan]] lumberman [[Ephraim Shay]]. The [[Shay locomotive]] was built for steep grades, heavy loads and tight turns. In 1881, Shay granted the Lima works an exclusive license to manufacture his locomotives. By 1882, locomotives were the company's main product. In time, the Lima Locomotive Works – a name formally adopted in 1916 – would produce 2,761 Shay locomotives, which were sent to 48 states and 24 foreign countries. As of 2005, some were in use 100 years after they were shipped.

By 1910, the company was moving aggressively into direct-drive locomotives for general railroad use. A new "super power" design, introduced in 1925, enabled Lima to capture 20% of the national market for locomotives. The "super power" locomotive was created by mechanical engineer William E. Woodard. Designed to make more efficient use of [[steam]] at high speed, it became, in the words of railroad historian Eric Hirsimaki, "one of the most influential locomotives in the history of steam power". Later years saw the introduction of the [[Chesapeake and Ohio Railway]] 2-6-6-6, one of the largest locomotives ever built, and the glamorous [[Southern Pacific Railroad|Southern Pacific]] "Daylights," designed to complement the Pacific Coast scenery.

The locomotive works dabbled in other product lines. It produced railroad cars in the early years and acquired the Ohio Power Shovel Company in 1928. During World War II, the plant produced 1,655 [[Sherman tank]]s. Employment grew from 150 in the 1890s to 1,100 in 1912 and 2,000 in 1915, peaking at 4,300 in 1944. Over the course of its history, the Locomotive Works was a microcosm of the community, a place where each successive wave of newcomers took its place in turn. First the Germans and Italians, later African-Americans and ultimately women joining the work force during World War II. Labor organizing efforts were under way at the plant at least by the 1890s.

Post-war mergers attempting to keep the plant operating created the Lima-Hamilton Corporation in 1947 and later [[Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton]] in 1950. The last [[steam locomotive]] built at the plant, Nickel Plate No. 779, was delivered May 13, 1949. It is now on display in Lima's Lincoln Park. The final diesel locomotive, built by Lima-Hamilton, was delivered in 1951. After the end of locomotive production, the plant continued to produce cranes and road building equipment. The plant was sold to Clark Equipment in 1971. Clark employed 1,500 as late as 1974, but the plant closed permanently in 1981. As of 2006, the Lima Locomotive Works plant has been razed.