Overview

Company President A.C. Estep opened this marine engine manufacturing plant in 10/1934, producing four-cylinder, 135-horsepower Estep diesel engines for new steel-hulled fishing trollers. The factory employed, by 01/1935, twenty-two workmen. Estep had 25 years of experience building diesel marine engines, before he opened his own firm. A well-known engine, the Washington Estep engine, produced by the Washington Iron Works, became a reliable, go-to diesel that found a good market at a time when ship operators were transitioning from steam to diesel-power plants. Estep spent ten years with Washington Iron Works (1921-1931), and, in 1978, he estimated that between 300 and 400 Washington Estep engines had been produced and sold, ranging in size from 150 to 600 horsepower. Most were used on the Pacific Coast, but some were shipped to other parts of the US.

Estep's factory opened during the Depression and did not last long; before he retired in the 1960s, he worked as the chief engineer for other engine companies outside of the Puget Sound region, including the Kahlenberg Engine Company of Two Rivers, WI, and the Atlas Imperial Engine Company in Chicago, IL.

PCAD id: 19584