Clark built the forklift business in 1917, in Buchanan, Michigan, and then lost it.
Since 2003 the name on the hood has belonged to the Young An Hat Company of South Korea.

In 1917 an axle shop in Buchanan, Michigan built a three-wheeled works truck to move its own castings across its own yard. Just under two tons of payload, a combustion engine, no forks and no price. It was called the Tructractor. Clark did not invent the forklift. In 1906 an official of the Pennsylvania Railroad at Altoona hung a battery under a baggage cart. In 1915 Baker built an electric lift truck for moving bombs, with no forks on it. In 1923 Yale put forks and a raising mast on a powered chassis. Clark's machine came in 1924, a lifting and stacking attachment on the Duat tow tractor, one year later, running on gasoline instead of a battery. The invention belonged to Yale. The business belonged to Clark.

The load was standardised by an office, not by a factory. In 1943 the United States Navy fixed its pallet at 48 inches by 48 inches. The Quartermaster Corps chose 32 by 40 and wrote down that the size would cover only about 85 percent of what it had to move. That same year Norman Cahners filed a patent on a pallet built from blocks instead of stringers, so forks could enter from any of the four sides.

In 1987 a United States agency counted eight American companies building combustion forklifts. That year Japanese trucks took 51.4 percent of apparent United States demand for standard-lift combustion trucks. At the end of April 1987 Hyster and four labor organizations filed an antidumping petition. On 7 June 1988 the margins were published: Kasagi 56.81 percent, Nissan Motor, Sumitomo-Yale and Toyo Umpanki 51.33 percent each, Komatsu 47.50 percent, all producers not named individually 39.45 percent, Toyota Motor 17.29 percent, Sanki Industrial 13.65 percent. By 1990 those producers were building inside the United States. The order was not revoked until 2006.

Clark Equipment sold the material handling division to Terex in 1992. In April 2000 the Clark Material Handling Company filed for Chapter 11, together with Blue Giant and Hydroelectric Lift Trucks. In 2003 the Young An Hat Company of Seoul bought the business for 7.5 million dollars plus roughly 10 million dollars of assumed debt. Bobcat, out of the same corporate file, went to Doosan in 2007 for 4.9 billion dollars.

This is the Iron Ledger. What was spent, what was built, who paid.

Chapters:
0:00 The name on the hood today
0:49 The 1917 Tructractor in Buchanan
5:09 The Navy pallet and eight builders
11:26 The dumping margins of 7 June 1988
17:58 Chapter 11 and the 7.5 million sale
21:51 Ledger line: 1917 to 2003

Sources:
https://www.usitc.gov/publications/70...
https://www.usitc.gov/publications/70...
https://archives.federalregister.gov/...
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/F...
http://web.archive.org/web/2025020920...
https://web.archive.org/web/202502092...
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/F...
https://www.worldcargonews.com/news/2...
https://www.mhlnews.com/archive/artic...
https://www.mmh.com/article/top_20_li...
https://www.vavforklift.com/why-do-so...
https://www.clarkmhc.com/Company/History
https://www.logisticshalloffame.net/e...
https://clarkmheu.com/en/company/abou...
https://www.leavittmachinery.com/blog...

#forklift #industrialhistory #materialhandling #clark #ironledger