Beloit

Beloit may refer to

Places

United States

Other uses

Beloit, Wisconsin

Beloit is a city in Rock County, Wisconsin, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 36,966.

History

Beloit was a New England settlement. The original founders of Beloit consisted entirely of settlers from New England. These people were "Yankees", that is to say they were descended from the English Puritans who settled New England in the 1600s. They were part of a wave of New England farmers who headed west into what was then the wilds of the Northwest Territory during the early 1800s. Most of them arrived as a result of the completion of the Erie Canal. When they arrived in what is now Beloit there was nothing but dense virgin forest and wild prairie, the New Englanders laid out farms, constructed roads, erected government buildings and established post routes. They brought with them many of their Yankee New England values, such as a passion for education, establishing many schools as well as staunch support for abolitionism. They were mostly members of the Congregationalist Church though some were Episcopalian. Due to the second Great Awakening some of them had converted to Methodism before moving to what is now Beloit and some had become Baptist. Beloit, like much of Wisconsin, would be culturally very continuous with early New England culture for most of its early history.

Beloit Corporation

Beloit Corporation began in 1858 as a foundry in the Wisconsin city of Beloit and ended in 2000 when it filed for bankruptcy and parts of it were acquired by Metso Paper, a part of Metso Corporation. The Italian affiliate became PMT Italia under the control of the Nugo Group. For much of its history, the trading name was Beloit Iron Works, but it became simply "Beloit Corporation" in 1962.

History

In its early phases, the business offered a variety of iron-based machinery products. It traded under the names of its founders, as Merrill and Houston Iron Works. It was bought by four of its employees in 1885 and become Beloit Iron Works.

In 1897 and 1900 the company exported its first paper machines to Japan and China respectively.

In the last two decades of its history, the corporation was the only producer of pulp and paper machinery and systems in North America.