AO Smith Water Heaters

In 1940, A. O. Smith acquired Sawyer Electric of Los Angeles, California, a producer of electric motors. By 1942, the company once again shifted to wartime production, manufacturing bomb casings, aircraft propellers, landing gear, torpedoes, and air flasks. By the end of World War II, its output included 4.5 million bombs, 16,750 landing gear assemblies, and 46,700 propeller blades. The company also supplied nose frames for the B-25 bomber, as well as water heaters, jeep frames, and components for the atomic bomb project.

In 1946, A. O. Smith opened a 400,000-square-foot residential water heater plant in Kankakee, Illinois, which also produced heaters for the Kenmore brand. Two years later, it entered the commercial water heater market by acquiring The Burkay Company of Toledo, Ohio. In 1949, the company expanded into agricultural equipment with the launch of Harvestore—a glass-fused-to-steel silo for dairy and livestock operations.

During the 1950s, A. O. Smith purchased Whirl-A-Way Motors of Dayton, Ohio, consolidating its motor production and later introducing the hermetic motor, a breakthrough for air conditioning and refrigeration compressors. Meanwhile, the water heater division developed the first glass-lined commercial water heater, the A. O. Smith Burkay B-65. The company also founded a glass fiber division to replace steel in multiple applications and grew into oil field and service station piping, which eventually became Smith Fiberglass Products in 1986.