The Marietta Manufacturing Company was started by W. F. Robinson Company in Marietta OH in 1852. At first, it built sailing craft and then steam-propelled craft for commercial service on the western rivers. It pioneered the use of steam for capstans and steering gear, and, as a foundry, it turned out stoves, plows and metal castings. It organized in 1890 and, after narrowly escaping destruction from the floods of 1913, moved to Point Pleasant WV in 1915. There it developed a new shipyard on a 42-acre site, with a marine railway, a 180'-by-79' 2,000-ton dry-dock and launching ways. In addition to building and repairing a variety of small vessels and barges for inland service, it also constructed carbon-black plants, pipe mills and crane booms. When World War II came, employment reached 3,000 and the yard was a major producer of the Army's large tugs. After the war, however, employment declined and the yard closed in 1967.
