Is there a record of the number of boats produced per year from the Peshtigo facility?
Do records exist to identify where boats were shipped or sold?
Specifically:
How many boats produced in '65 and '66?
Where was 60116 shipped or sold?
Why would ThomBoy number 980 in '65 be restamped number 116 in '66?
Boat Production by Year
Moderators: a j r, TDockside, Miles, Moderators
Hello,
There are NO production records or shipping records that exist for Thompson Bros. Boat Mfg. Co. of Peshtigo, WI. Thru the various moves and ownership changes of the company, stuff got destroyed.
When Yar-Craft obtained some of the molds and tooling for Thompson Marine Products (successor to Thompson Boat) at St. Charles, MI in December 2005 they went thru the office and factory. There were many, many file cabinets, but everything was empty. I doubt that any pre-1970 records existed anyway.
I suspect your boat was built in 1965 and sat around the factory, unshipped. It got finished later on or was just restamped prior to it being shipped the next model year. This is just a theory.
There do exist some shipping records for the Cortland operation of Thompson Boat. They are in ledger books at the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, VA. I had begun to enter them into a computer database. It will take dozens to trips to their archive and years to complete the project. I have pretty much given up since I do not have the resources to make frequent trips to Virginia. They do not have anything from Peshtigo.
Andreas
There are NO production records or shipping records that exist for Thompson Bros. Boat Mfg. Co. of Peshtigo, WI. Thru the various moves and ownership changes of the company, stuff got destroyed.
When Yar-Craft obtained some of the molds and tooling for Thompson Marine Products (successor to Thompson Boat) at St. Charles, MI in December 2005 they went thru the office and factory. There were many, many file cabinets, but everything was empty. I doubt that any pre-1970 records existed anyway.
I suspect your boat was built in 1965 and sat around the factory, unshipped. It got finished later on or was just restamped prior to it being shipped the next model year. This is just a theory.
There do exist some shipping records for the Cortland operation of Thompson Boat. They are in ledger books at the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, VA. I had begun to enter them into a computer database. It will take dozens to trips to their archive and years to complete the project. I have pretty much given up since I do not have the resources to make frequent trips to Virginia. They do not have anything from Peshtigo.
Andreas
Oh, regarding numbers of boats built in any given year, again, it is difficult to say.
Thompson Boat at Peshtigo was making 5,000 boats annually for most of her history. In her peak year she made 8,000 boats at Peshtigo.
Production sank to almost nothing by 1966. In 1961 there was a recession and the entire boating industry suffered. Thompson at Peshtigo probably never reached the 5,000 number again. By mid 1966 Thompson Boat only had 15-20 employees and they were only working part time. This was down from about 200 workers a few years earlier.
I suspect they made only a few hundred boats in 1966.
Cruisers, Inc. at Oconto (a Thompson Boat spin-off) went from shipping 3,000 boats in 1960 to only 800 in 1965. They were on the same downward trend as Thomspon.
Andreas
Thompson Boat at Peshtigo was making 5,000 boats annually for most of her history. In her peak year she made 8,000 boats at Peshtigo.
Production sank to almost nothing by 1966. In 1961 there was a recession and the entire boating industry suffered. Thompson at Peshtigo probably never reached the 5,000 number again. By mid 1966 Thompson Boat only had 15-20 employees and they were only working part time. This was down from about 200 workers a few years earlier.
I suspect they made only a few hundred boats in 1966.
Cruisers, Inc. at Oconto (a Thompson Boat spin-off) went from shipping 3,000 boats in 1960 to only 800 in 1965. They were on the same downward trend as Thomspon.
Andreas