Enoch Carlson began his career at CBI in 1897 at age 13 as a water boy at the Bridge, worked up to a riveter in Shop #1, later became a field foreman building many kinds of tanks including elevated tanks, and in 1918 was named superintendent of the Washington Heights shop after completing a successful U.S. Navy contract for eight 500-ton coal barges. Known as a rough-faced Swede with three cardinal rules—no solicitors without the superintendent's approval, no smoking, and no quitting early—he was regarded as complete master of the shop while keeping the welfare of his workers uppermost in mind, served as shop superintendent for twenty-nine years until retiring in 1947, and was likely, with his CBI crew and a few local hires, to have erected the Shamrock tower. CBI officially began operations in August 1889 under President and Chief Engineer Horace E. Horton on property in Washington Heights, Illinois, between two railroads including the main line of the Rock Island, where its first fabrication plant was built. Primarily a bridge builder in its early years, the Bridge Works soon pursued contracts for water towers and standpipes, and in 1907 received the first of its current 1500 patents and 70 proprietary licensed technologies, including Patent #857,626 for a hemispherical ellipsoidal bottom water tank supported on a riser. A 1912 brochure praised the elliptical bottom tank for its pleasing appearance in a prominent location and its lasting quality, saying the steel tank does not leak, rot, burn, or burst and is a permanent structure. In January 1916, CBI sales were just short of $2,000,000 with profits of nearly $135,000, and in 2007 the company reported annual sales of $4,363,500,000 and profits of $356,900,000.