Business View Magazine | October 2020

34 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2020 AT A GLANCE DRAKE-WILLIAMS STEEL INC. WHAT: A fabricator of structural steel and steel products WHERE: Omaha, Nebraska WEBSITE: www.dwsteel.com Williams STEEL I NC . Building value since 1882 D rake-Williams Steel Inc. of Omaha, Nebraska was founded in 1882 as the Wilson Steam Boiler Company. In 1893, a boiler maker named George Drake bought into Wilson’s company, followed in 1897 by Hugh Williams. The company was renamed Drake-Wilson & Williams, which soon became the Drake-Williams-Mount Company in 1901, after George Drake died and Ernst O. Mount came onboard to help capitalize the business. In 1913, Hugh Williams’ two sons, Art and Walt joined the business, manufacturing steam boilers, tanks, smokestacks, and breechings, which are the small segments of metal ductwork that connect a boiler to the stack. During the 1920s, at the request of a customer, the company started making dragline buckets. A dragline excavator is a piece of heavy equipment used in civil engineering and surface mining. A dragline bucket is a large steel bucket which is suspended from the excavator’s boom with wire ropes and maneuvered by means of a number of ropes and chains. In a typical -