Arrow Homage at Big Thunder Mountain

Look for this on your walk up to the Big Thunder pre-show building

Disney Imagineers are noted for their painstaking attention to detail and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Walt Disney World is no exception. The preshow que area is filled with real and Imagineered artifacts, but this one caught my attention because of its association with Arrow Development.

Before Andy Anderson, Karl Bacon, William Hardiman and Ed Morgan founded Arrow, they worked together at the Joshua Hendy Iron Works in Sunnyvale.

Hendy Factory in Sunnyvale

The Joshua Hendy Iron Works was founded in San Francisco in 1856, initially to supply equipment to the placer miners hoping to strike it rich in the California Gold fields. The Hendy factory would become leading supplier and manufacturer in the mining industry, supplying ore carts, crushers, stamp and ball mills to mines around the world.

Hendy Stamp Mill @ WDW

Upon Joshua Hendy’s death in 1891, the company was taken over by his nephews Samuel J. and John H. Hendy.  Samuel died in March 1906 and the Great San Francisco Fire and Earthquake destroyed the factory in April.  Hendy relocated down the penninsula, to Sunnyvale, lured by an offer of free land.

By the late 1930s, the company was in deep financial trouble,  with only 60 employees. Hendy was in receivership when Charles E. Moore established a controlling interest in 1940 and started to land contracts with the US Navy for torpedo tube mounts and marine steam engines.

Hendy Marine Engine Ad

Eventually Hendy’s employment rolls would swell to over 11,000, as crews worked around the clock to fill the wartime orders. By June 1943, the unions were pressing for reduced overtime and threatening work slowdowns, which Karl Bacon and Ed Morgan would recall as part of their reason for striking out on their own, starting Arrow Development, initially as a machine shop and used machine tool vendor.

Karl Bacon is third from the left, arms folded, in the second row.

Their jobs at Hendy provided Karl and Ed valuable experience in welding, casting, machining and design, which would prove useful on their carousels, boats, miniature trains and kiddie car rides. Even Hendy’s stepped, mansard style roof would be  reprised on Arrow’s first building at 243 Moffett in Mountain View.

We don't know the name of this wartime Hendy "Rosie" installing steam turbine blades, but she has remarkably well developed - and hairy - forearms! (;-)