EUCLID, INC., was one of the world's leading firms in the manufacture of off-highway, earthmoving, and hauling equipment. The company began in 1926 as part of the Euclid Crane & Hoist Co., a firm founded by Geo. Armington in 1909. In 1931 Armington's son, Arthur, took over a small shop adjoining Euclid Crane at 1368 Chardon Rd. in EUCLID and incorporated Euclid Crane & Hoist's off-highway division as a separate firm, the Euclid Rd. Machinery Co. Beginning with 300 employees, the company produced as many as 20 15-ton trucks per month for the construction and mining industries. Euclid tripled its production during World War II and continued to prosper in the postwar period. In 1946 it built a new plant at E. 222nd St. and St. Clair; bought another nearby plant 3 years later; and gained an international reputation for quality equipment. When General Motors acquired the firm for $20 million in 1953, Euclid Rd. was a $33 million business with 1,600 employees turning out 170 trucks per month—over half the nation's off-highway dump trucks.
As a GM division, Euclid continued to develop larger types of equipment. However, GM was forced to dispose of its Euclid plant as the result of an antitrust suit and sold it to the WHITE MOTOR CO. in 1968. Reorganized as Euclid, Inc., the firm remained profitable under White but suffered from the financial difficulties of its parent company in the 1970s. In 1977, White Motor Corp. sold the company to Daimler-Benz of West Germany, giving Euclid a new source of capital and a means to continue its expansion into new markets. Despite gaining some new plants in several foreign markets, Euclid's business faltered during the recession of the early 1980s and Daimler-Benz sold Euclid, Inc. to a construction equipment firm, Clark Michigan Co., a subsidiary of Clark Equipment Co. in 1984. Clark closed the St. Clair Ave. plant at the beginning of 1985, selling it to LINCOLN ELECTRIC CO. in 1988. Despite the sale of the St. Clair Ave plant, Euclid, then part of VME Industries North America (a joint venture of Volvo and Clark Michigan), maintained offices in the newly refurbished technical center across the street from its former plant.
The next decade brought still further change to Euclid's operations as the company became known as the Euclid-Hitachi Heavy Equipment, Inc in Jan 1994. Although Euclid-Hitachi would continue to employ nearly 120 engineers and administrators in Cleveland, it was clear that decisions would continue to be made elsewhere. In 2001, Euclid-Hitachi became a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Construction Machinery Co. At the end of 2003, company officials announced that the company's name would be changed to the Hitachi Construction Truck Manufacturing Co. and that, over the next two years, all North American operations would be consolidated to its facility in Guelph, Ontario Canada.