The Buffalo-Springfield Roller Company: How Buffalo Pitts Shaped American Road Building

1. From Buffalo Pitts Steam Rollers to the 1916 Consolidation

By the 1890s, the Buffalo Pitts Works at Fourth and Carolina Streets in Buffalo had expanded beyond agricultural threshing machines and traction engines into heavy macadam and asphalt steam road rollers. As municipal street paving boomed across the United States, the roller operations were organized under the Buffalo Steam Roller Company.

Meanwhile, O.S. Kelly's Springfield Road Roller Company in Springfield, Ohio, held key patents on tandem and three-wheel road rollers. In 1916, the two companies consolidated manufacturing in Springfield, Ohio, under the name Buffalo-Springfield Roller Company—combining Buffalo Pitts' municipal engineering pedigree with Springfield's foundry capacity.

2. Engineering Milestones: Tandem Steam Rollers to Gasoline & Diesel Compaction

Buffalo-Springfield became the world's largest exclusive manufacturer of road-rolling equipment through the 1920s, 1930s, and World War II (supplying U.S. Army Corps of Engineers airfield rollers). The company later became a division of Koehring Company in the 1950s and eventually part of BOMAG.