This development, which has taken place within the past thirty-five years, may possibly have sprung indirectly from the old river traffic. Seventy years ago this traffic was large, and Cincinnati did the greater part of the engine and boat building and repair work. When the river trade vanished, the mechanics engaged in this work were compelled to turn their attention to something else, and there may be some significance in the coincidence of the rise of tool building with the decline of the older industry. There had been more or less manufacturing in Cincinnati for many years, but little of it could be described as tool building. Miles Greenwood established the Eagle Iron Works in 1832 on the site now occupied by the Ohio Mechanics Institute. It comprised a general machine shop, an iron foundry, brass foundries, and a hardware factory which rivaled those of New England, employing in all over 500 men. The hardware factory was important enough to attract the special attention of the English commissioners who visited this country in 1853. In the fifties and early sixties, Niles & Company built steamboat and stationary engines, locomotives and sugar machinery, and employed from 200 to 300 men. This company was the forerunner of the present Niles Tool Works in Hamilton. Lane & Bodley were building woodworking machinery about the same time, and J. A. Fay & Company, another firm building woodworking machinery, which started in Keene, N. H., began work in Cincinnati in the early sixties. The first builder of metal-working tools in Cincinnati was John Steptoe; in fact, he is said to have been for many years the only tool builder west of the Alleghenies. Steptoe came to this country from Oldham, England, some time in the forties. It is said that he was a foundling and that his name came from his having been left on a doorstep. He was married before he came to Cincinnati, and had served an apprenticeship of seven years, although he was so young in appearance that no one would believe it. After working some time for Greenwood, he started in business for himself, making a foot power mortising machine and later a line of woodworking tools. The first metal-working tool which he built was a copy of the Putnam lathe. With Thomas McFarlan, another Englishman, he formed the firm of Steptoe & McFarlan, and his shop, called the Western Machine Works, employed by 1870 about 300 men. Their old payrolls contain the names of William E. Gang of the William E. Gang Company; Mr. Oesterlien of the Oesterlien Machine Company; and Mr. Dietz of the old Dietz, Schumacher & Boye Company, now the Boye & Emmes Machine Tool Company.