Valley Girl Views: The Monkey Shop in Milton

The "Monkey Shop" At AC&F

"In June of 1931 a small building on the South end of the American Car and foundry plant along the Pennsylvania road railroad at Milton was dismantled having falling to pieces

The "monkey shop" was a landmark at the plant and an interesting part of the history of the company reveals the origin of the name for the small building

When the ill-fated Collins expedition set out for Brazil in 1878 to construct a railroad through the wild forest jungle of that country the old firm of Murray Dougall and company limited, which then owned the Milton car works, secured a contract to furnish box cars for the proposed railroad

The cars were built but before any shipments of them had been made the Collins expedition suffered severe financial losses due to the almost insurmountable difficulties in the construction of the road and also to the sinking and road to Brazil of several of their vessels carrying building materials and food supplies for the army of men engaged in the construction

The whole project finally ended in disaster when the Collins brothers contractors, being unable to pay the wages of the men stranded in the wilds of Brazil, or even to get food to them, many of the men perished from starvation or the deadly tropical fevers and the survivors were left to work their way back to the United states as best they could suffering terrible hardships on the long journey home

On account of the financial failure of the Collins brothers none of the cars were ever delivered by Murray Douglas and company and as they were not suitable for use in this country they were stored in the old frame building at the northeast corner of the plant which was afterward used as a construction shop for car tanks. The cars remained in storage for about 10 years before being finally sold to another South American railroad

The historic "monkey shop" was erected to provide a place in which to take the Collins box cars apart and pack them for the ocean shipment to South America. The Brazilian cars were tiny narrow gauge cars with a small cabin in one end of each car to provide shelter for the brakeman. Some person employed on the job of packing the cars started the story that the South American railway on which the cars would run was manned entirely by monkeys and that these little animals acted as engineers firemen and brakemen. This story caused the building to become known as the monkey shop and so it has been named ever since being so designated on all official maps of the AC and F company and so referred to an all company correspondence

Quite a number of men from Milton Watsontown and Dewart accompanied the Collins exposition. A complete history of the expedition may be obtained from a book now in the Milton Public Library by Newville B Craig it is entitled recollections of an ill-fated expedition to the headwaters of the madeira river in Brazil and from the diary kept by William there's angst of Milton one of the survivors of the expedition."

Story from the Hazelton Speaker, June 1931

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From Sawmill To The American Car Foundry, The History Of ACF In Milton