Food Machinery Corporation (Riverside, Calif.)

Business rivals, Stebler and Parker filed numerous patent infringement cases against the other, and against other competitors. Upon the advice of banker W.B. Clancy, and based on economic necessity, the two merged in 1920 to form the Stebler-Parker Company, which produced the packing and handling machines at Stebler's plant. Parker continued at his factory with his mailing devices and wire-tyeing machines.

During the 1920's, a third competitior entered the business. Hale Paxton developed a mailing machine that was faster, lighter, and could be easily transported to the fields, unlike Parker's machine.

The California Fruit Growers Echange encouraged the Food Machinery Corporation to enter the field of citrus machinery. FMC started as a national consolidation of various manufacturers of vegetable drying and packing equipment, fruit canning machines, and agricultural spray pumps. In the 1930's, the Stebler-Parker Company became a division of FMC under the name of Citrus Machinery Co. with Stebler a large stockholder.

In 1940, FMC helped design a light amphibious tracked vehicle. The government gave FMC the contract to build military versions of the vehicle, with an assembly line in Forida and another in Riverside. Several types of the Landing Vehicle Tracked (LVT) also known as the Water Bufalo) were produced with Riverside responsible for the gun turret version, the LVT-4. The Riverside main plant also manufactured spare parts for the vehicles. During World War II, FMC built 11,251 LVT vehicles, receivng in 1945 the Army-Navy "E" award for outstanding war production.

FMC Corporation (its moniker since 1961) continued operations worldwide with its chemical divisions, military contracts (including ones forthe M113 and Brandley Fighting Vehicle), and its agricultural and machinerysystems. Though FMC Corporation continues to have a sales and service locationin Riverside on Linden Street, it sold the building at the site of Parker'sold factory and moved its citrus system and food technology headquarters to Florida.

From the description of The Food Machinery Corporation (FMC) Photograph collection, [194-195]. (Riverside Public Library). WorldCat record id: 47160112