The company manufactured iron wheels for railroad cars on eight acres located directly across the Lehigh River from the present day intersection of Irving and Lehigh Streets. The era (1880-1890) of rapid expansion of railway lines had not commenced and business was slow, limited to fifteen wheels per day. The need constantly to re-invest profits into the facility discouraged the partners. William R. Thomas moved south in 1871, and his brother James followed a year later. The panic of 1873 and the death of Charles D. Fuller (1873) placed additional hardships on the remaining two partners; James H. McKee and James W. Fuller, Jr.

In 1880 the Erie Railroad announced its intention to buy a large quantity of complete, eight wheel, railroad cars with wooden bin enclosures. They proposed to issue promissory notes as payment. This arrangement would force any consenting firm to privately finance the project. Fuller pledged the entire assets of McKee, Fuller and secured the contract.

Needing additional manufacturing space, the firm purchased the adjoining car plant, Frederick and Beck (1866-1873) which had lain idle for years and was owned by the National Bank of Catasauqua. Fuller telegraphed James Thomas in Alabama, requesting that he re-open the Davies and Thomas Foundry. He guaranteed Thomas work for one year for the manufacture of small castings.

Great success followed and in 1883 William W. McKee (son of James McKee and son-in-law of James Thomas) and Benjamin Franklin Swartz (salesman) were admitted as stockholders. By 1884 the firm's gross yearly revenues reached $4,000,000. Fifteen hundred men were employed and the small hamlet of Fullerton, which Fuller designed in 1870, became a thriving village. Through Mr. Fuller's dual capacities as manager and traveling salesman, working 15 to 18 hours per day, the enterprise became spectacularly successful.

James McKee died in 1895 and his shares were purchased by the firm. Incorporation under the name Lehigh, Car, Wheel & Axle Works was accomplished in 1901 and the three remaining partners realized the benefits of incorporation and protected the firm's assets from lengthy inheritance quarrels.

The plant facilities encompassed sixty acres, stretching along the western banks of the Lehigh River between the river and Lower Catasauqua Road.

During the early 1900's, the Lehigh Valley became the cement capital of the world, with no fewer than 18 cement plants located within a 75 mile radius of Lehigh Car, Wheel & Axle Works. Fuller recognized the restrictive growth opportunities of the railway industry and the unlimited future potential of the cement industry. He gradually switched the facilities from the manufacture of railroad cars to that of machinery servicing the cement mills. William McKee died in 1905 and B. Franklin Swartz in 1909. Fuller purchased all outstanding stock and became the sole stockholder. Late in 1909 Fuller retired from the daily business of the firm and his son, Colonel James W. Fuller became president.

James W. Fuller, Jr. died one year later, 1910. Fuller's family inherited the stock of Lehigh Car, Wheel & Axle; namely, Kate (nee Thomas), James' wife, and surviving children - Maud, wife of Dr. Louis A. Salade, Mary Louise, wife of H. D. McCaskey and Colonel James W. Fuller (an honorary title of Lieutenant Colonel given him by Pennsylvania Governor John K. Tener).

The husbands of Blanche and Mary Louise doubted the future success of the firm and urged their wives to sell their shares to Colonel Fuller. It is assumed that Kate and Maud also relinquished their shares because Colonel Fuller emerged as the sole stockholder. Joseph Elverson remained active with the firm, first as chemist and later as secretary and treasurer. (At age 88, in his obituary, he was listed as consultant to Babcock and Wilcox, successor of Lehigh Car, Wheel & Axle.)

In 1910, at age 37, Colonel Fuller appeared sufficiently prepared to handle the responsibilities of running the company. He inherited his father's keen business sense and, through his mother Kate's lineage, he also had an inquiring and inventive mind. (His grandfather was Hopkin Thomas, master mechanic and teacher of many early iron entrepreneurs.)

Colonel Fuller understood the company intimately, having gathered this knowledge during nineteen years of employment. Instead of attending college, upon graduation from Haverford Preparatory School, the Colonel apprenticed himself to the machinist and molders at Lehigh Car, Wheel & Axle. He acquired an expert's knowledge of the company's products and principles of mechanical engineering. He was promoted from Secretary to Treasurer to General Sales Manager and finally to President. He invented the Fuller Mill, a device designed to grind clinker rock and coal used in the manufacture of cement.

Seeking to expand his product base, Colonel Fuller learned of the Kinyon Pump, invented by an Allentonian, Alonzo C. Kinyon. As a fireman on the Lehigh Valley Railroad, Kinyon's job entailed shoveling coal from the coal car into the firebox of the locomotive. To relieve himself of his back-breaking chore, Kinyon developed a system of conveying the pulverized coal mechanically from the coal car into the firebox.

The colonel recognized the merits of the Kinyon conveying system as applied to any heating unit using coal and a boiler. He purchased the patent rights from Kinyon, paying him, and later his widow, royalty rights for every pump and pipeline sold.

Colonel Fuller's firm developed the pump as a conveyor of pulverized fuel for the Zinc, Chemical and Cement industries. It eliminated the explosive hazards associated with the physical handling of coal to stationary boilers and metallurgical furnaces. It was especially valued in electric power plants, where coal fired furnaces heated water for steam driven turbines.

Meanwhile fate played a part in Colonel Fuller's success story. His business transactions brought him into contact with the newly organized (1909) Allentown Portland Cement Company, located in Evansville, Berks County. (The village no longer exists, having been torn down in 1934 when the city of Reading expanded its water reservoir, Lake Outelanee.) Today the plant lies just west of Route 222 near the Maiden Creek exit.

Colonel Fuller sold the Fuller Mill to Allentown Portland, for which the founder and majority stockholder, Charles Matcham could not pay. Colonel Fuller accepted stock certificates in lieu of cash. Over the next several years the Colonel purchased additional shares when available and in 1918 secured complete ownership. In 1918 Colonel Fuller decided that the name Lehigh, Car, Wheel & Axle was antiquated and changed it to Fuller-Lehigh.

Employed as plant manager in 1910 was Alfred E. Douglass, Sr. Douglass' superior managerial skills, agile mind and thorough knowledge of the cement industry impressed Colonel Fuller. He elevated Douglass to the position of general manager, president and eventually chairman of the board. It was Douglass who guided the Fuller Company after the Colonel's death in 1929.

1926 - 1986

The Colonel's intense drive and natural selling ability brought large contracts to Fuller-Lehigh. So important were the plant and patents he controlled that other industrialists felt threatened by his success. One such company was Babcock and Wilcox of Ohio.

Fuller-Lehigh and Babcock and Wilcox found themselves on the construction sites of several electric power plants. Babcock supplied the boilers and Fuller-Lehigh the coal conveying system. Babcock realized the advantage of acquiring the Fuller-Kinyon conveying system.

Colonel Fuller agreed to sell Fuller-Lehigh to the Ohio company. He even sold the Kinyon pumps, but only the rights to convey pulverized coal. Colonel Fuller retained the rights to convey any other finely divided materials. The sale was completed in 1927 for $3,000,000. Babcock and Wilcox continued to operate Fuller-Lehigh until 1936, when they transferred operations to Barberton, Ohio, taking with them many highly skilled employees and residents of Catasauqua.

With the Fuller-Kinyon conveying system as nucleus for a new company, Colonel Fuller incorporated the Fuller Company in the state of Delaware, March 11, 1926. He located the executive headquarters in Catasauqua, purchasing the former offices of Empire Steel and Iron, 124 Bridge Street, from Leonard Peckitt. This building became known as Fuller Building No. 1. The Colonel also transferred the executive offices of Allentown Portland Cement to Fuller Building No. 1 and shifted Douglass to vice-president and general manager of the Fuller Company. Douglass moved his family; wife Jean and children, Alfred, Jr., Donald and Elizabeth into the residence owned by Colonel Fuller at 603 Pine Street. Colonel Fuller had purchased the property from the Salade family prior to their relocation to Oregon in 1917. Douglass later bought the home from C. Thomas Fuller, the Colonel's son, who had inherited it in 1929.

Colonel Fuller recognized the value of owning cement plants where prototypes of any Fuller created devices could be tested and operated and shown to prospective customers. Equipped with the $3-million from the sale of the Fuller-Lehigh, Colonel Fuller developed such a plant in Conshohocken, naming the plant Valley Forge. It was at this plant and at the Evansville facility that the Fuller Company installed the newest devices for cement manufacturing. The corporate offices of Valley Forge Cement Company were also located at 124 Bridge Street.