From Ohio to Maine to the jungles of Latin America and the arid Middle East, AMERICAN’s business is in high gear as 1948 meets 1949. In Elyria, Ohio, five miles of AMERICAN 30-inch pipe is used for a force main to replace a line made of another material. The replaced line, according to a 1948 Pipe Progress, "gave trouble almost from the beginning (of its installation). Maintenance on it was required continuously from a short time after it was installed ... cast iron pipe is cheaper in the long run because it rarely requires replacement." In other projects documented in Pipe Progress, AMERICAN piping is installed to supply water at a corn refinery in Pekin, Illinois; a paper mill in Kalamazoo, Michigan, utilizes AMERICAN piping; a 24-inch line is installed across the Saco River at Biddeford, Maine; and in Junction City, Kansas, AMERICAN piping is used for a state-of-the-art water softening plant. In Latin America, AMERICAN is supplying the United Fruit Company with piping materials for overhead irrigation systems. And, three years after the end of World War II, Pipe Progress says it can now be reported that large quantities of cast iron pipe and fittings were sent to secret destinations during the war. One such destination was in Abadan, Iran, site of a large Anglo-Iranian Oil Company refinery that produced aviation gasoline for the Allies.   The company’s shipping subsidiary lost about half of its 93 ships during the war through enemy action, with no less than 664 men and officers killed or missing and 266 taken prisoner, according to Pipe Progress.

AMERICAN piping is shown here during installation across the Saco River at Biddeford, Maine. A workman adjusts a diver’s headgear as the diver prepares to descend into the water.