The History of Eagle Crusher Manufacturing: Built on Family Values

The rock crushing industry has a long and rugged history, filled with innovation, hard work, and the drive to meet the growing demands of construction and mining. At the core of this history lies not just machines, but the generations of families who turned ideas into durable equipment designed to stand the test of time.

The Creation of Eagle Crusher Company

It all began in the early 1900s with one man’s vision, that of C.L. Woods, an Ohio distributor of Eagle Tractors. Woods observed that farmers were taking the cobblestones from their fields and placing them along the dirt roadsides.

When the company didn’t share Woods’ vision of putting jaw crushers on the front of tractors, he founded his own company to manufacture the jaw crusher he had imagined. Thus, in 1915, in Kenton, Ohio, Eagle Crusher Company was born.

While Eagle Tractors eventually ceased production, Eagle Crusher Company continued to innovate and expand. To help with further expansion, Woods sold a share of Eagle Crusher to Ralph Cobey and then the rest of the shares at Woods’ retirement in 1952.

For a more in-depth version of Eagle Crusher’s history, please visit the history page.

Eagle Crusher Under Cobey Management

Ralph Cobey recruited his daughter, Susanne Cobey in 1974, becoming the company’s tenth employee, to handle the parts sales. She sought a new direction for Eagle Crusher. Susanne knew of the frustration customers were having processing asphalt and concrete with rebar with the traditional aggregate jaw and cone. She determined that the Horizontal Shaft Impactor (HSI), which was developed after WW II to process debris, was the answer. Susanne concluded that only one HSI style suited the US market. With that impactor, Eagle built the first US commercial recycling plant, Eagle’s Jumbo 1400, in 1984, and a new industry was born.

Learn more about Susanne here.

The Families That Build Eagle Crusher

What makes this history so unique is how family has remained at the center of operations, in both the written and unwritten history of Eagle Crusher. On the outside, leadership was passed from parent to child, creating that sense of family values, but to the employees, the company was writing its own internal history. With employees often being treated like family, many actual families worked decades alongside one another.

Benny Lynn Jr started on July 26, 1995, as a machinist. “Eagle is the best place I’ve worked. I’ve worked at five different places in my life, and this is the best place.”  Benny has such a tremendous amount of pride in working at Eagle Crusher that he still carries his first paystub with him every day. That pride has been shared with his son, Justin. He joined Eagle Crusher immediately after graduating from Pioneer. Throughout his career as a welder, Justin always felt a magnetism to Eagle Crusher, coming back after testing out other positions.

In 1985, Sue was looking for a job now that her youngest had started going to school. She was “hired on the spot” while interviewing for a receptionist position. Throughout her 35 years at Eagle Crusher, she worked in a variety of positions, but not as many as her son, Scott. Fresh out of the army, Sue called Scott notifying him of an open position as a material handler. Throughout his 29 years at Eagle, Scott moved around from material handler to assembly to burn programming to ERP entry to night shift supervisor to day shift assembly supervisor to tech pub, where he currently works. “I never had a reason to leave. [I’ve] always enjoyed the people [at Eagle].” To which Sue agreed, saying “everyone is so friendly, it has felt like one big family.”

This sense of loyalty and care translates directly into the quality of our machines, because when you build with pride and integrity, the result is equipment that customers can rely on.

Creating Your Family Legacy with Eagle Crusher

While technology has advanced and the manufacturing processes have become more sophisticated, the family values that shaped Eagle Crusher continue to guide our operations. Honesty, hard work, and commitment to both employees and customers will always remain at the heart of Eagle Crusher does. In many ways, the rock crushers themselves is a perfect symbol of these values: strong, reliable, and built to last across generations.