The first machine shop and foundry built to serve the oil industry stood a year and a mile from Drake Well. In 1889, new owners organized it as the Titusville Iron Company, Limited, under executive officers John Fertig and James Curtis McKinney. In 1915, the corporation became the Titusville Iron Works Company and manufactured ship engine parts during World War I. Through additional mergers and other owners, oil field machinery and steam boiler production gradually gave way to defense-related equipment for World War II, when the plant employed 3,000 people, many of them women. Over time, the industrial complex grew to encompass a giant square of Titusville. Struthers Wells Corporation closed most of the Titusville Iron Works in 1963 and subdivided the facility. Since then, Day's Home Furnishings, Grand Valley Manufacturing Company, Buffalo Structural Steel Corporation, and Charter Plastics, Inc. have occupied parts of the enormous Iron Company buildings. Damage from the great 1892 flood and fire hastened brick construction to replace wooden buildings.