Gerstenslager Company During World War Two
Wooster, OH
1860-1890 as Wehe Company
 1890-1904 as Weimer-Gerstenslager
1904-1907 as Gerstenslager Bros. Co. also in Marshallville, Ohio
1904-1907 as Gerstenslager Bros. Co.
1907-1997 as Gerstenslager Co.
 1997-present as Gerstenslager Division of Worthington Industries, Wooster, Ohio
2000-present also in Clyde, Ohio

This page started 9-24-2024.

Gerstenslager’s history began in 1860 when a 19 year-old German immigrant named William T. Wehe established a wagon works in Marshallville (formerly Bristol), Baughman Township, Ohio. Wehe was active in community affairs serving as treasurer of Marshallville during the 1870s.  By 1880 the Wehe Company was one of Baughman Township’s largest employers. 

In 1882 a young blacksmith of German descent named George Gerstenslager (b.1863) went to work for the Wehe Company. His younger brother Barney (b. 1868) became associated with the firm and George eventually became its manager. Sometime around 1890 William T. Wehe retired, and the two Gerstenslager brothers purchased his share in the business which became known as Weimer & Gerstenslager.  In 1904 the Weimer’s retired and sold their share in the firm to the Gerstenslagers who reorganized it as Gerstenslager Bros., manufacturers of Buggies, Phaetons, and Surreys, etc.  The brothers knew that in order to expand the firm, they needed more skilled hands than the small community of Marshallville could supply.  So, in 1907 they relocated to Wooster, Ohio, a much larger city located 15 miles southeast of Marshallville. The brothers reorganized as The Gerstenslager Company, 572 E. Liberty St., Wooster, Ohio. They continued to manufacture the same high-quality vehicles that they had built in Marshallville, only on a much grander scale. 

By 1929 it had become apparent to Gerstenslager management that their small Liberty Street factory was ill-suited to manufacture truck bodies in the quantities needed to fulfill incoming orders, so they relocated the business to a larger facility with room for expansion at 1425 E. Bowman St.  The start of the Depression was not the best time to expand a business, but Gerstenslager’s high quality truck bodies remained in demand, and they were able to survive the Depression.  Early on, the firm’s body designers had favored cab-forward and cab-over-engine (COE) chassis and a circa 1938 Gerstenslager catalog was filled with pictures of attractive aerodynamic vans.  By the late 1930s, the US Post Office’s existing fleet of Model A Parcel Post delivery trucks were on their last legs and in 1940 the Government began a replacement program which included new ¾-ton Ford trucks with bodies supplied by Gerstenslager and Proctor-Keefe. 

Gerstenslager catalogs dating from the early 1950s pictures mainly large furniture delivery trucks and moving vans, built on a wide variety of chassis, most of which were of the cab-over engine variety. A large number of large White Series 3000 COE-based vans were depicted and a special White-Gerstenslager catalog was distributed to the nation’s White dealers.  Although most of Gerstenslager Civil Defense trucks were less elaborate, they built large numbers throughout the 1950s and 1960s.  

The years from 1950 to 1954 brought five new versions of the Oscar Meyer Company’s Wienermobile, one of which is in the permanent collection of the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan.  Built upon a Dodge chassis the hotdog on wheels featured a high-fidelity public address/sound system and “bunroof.” 

Gerstenslager’s claim to fame is the construction of bookmobiles. Government mail trucks, custom fire and rescue vans, and anything where the customer does not require mass production. The first mail truck order came in 1940 and since then upwards of 35,000 red, white, and blue trucks have exited the plant. 

In 1997 Gerstenslager was purchased for about $113 million in stock by John H. McConnell’s Worthington Industries, a leading diversified metal processing company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. 

In 2000, Gerstenslager constructed a 180,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art stamping facility in Clyde, Ohio that featured an all-hydraulic press line which allowed the firm to grow its existing business and expand into new areas. Today, the Clyde facility produces car, light-truck, SUV and minivan door panels, side panels, fenders, and structural parts. 

From its headquarters in Wooster, Ohio, Gerstenslager employs over 1,000 people as of 2004, and occupies over 800,000 square feet of manufacturing, warehouse, and office space. It remains a leading independent supplier of current and past model exterior body panels to the automotive industry providing services including stamping, blanking, assembly, painting, packaging, warehousing, and distribution to customers such as General Motors, Ford, Navistar, Chrysler, Freightliner, Mitsubishi, Honda, Nissan, and Isuzu.

Gerstenslager Company's World War Two Products:  The tables below show that the Gerstenslager Company produced a minimum of 41,717 trailers for the Army Quartermaster Corps and Ordnance Department during World War Two.  These were produced by the Wooster, OH plant.  This information is documented in Tables 2 and 3.  This plant also produced an unknown number of airdrome trailers worth $705,000 for the USAAF.  The Wooster plant also produced an unknown amount of trailer parts, warehouse trailers, metal ammunition containers, and cartridge storage cases.  The total of all contracts for the Wooster, OH plant was $24,195,000  The company's Akron, OH plant produced an unknown number of trailers for the Quartermaster Corps and USAAF.  The contract total of these contracts was $1,790,000.

As with much of the documentation that can be found from World War Two, not all of the contracts from Table 2 match up with the information in Table 3.  However, I have been able to put together those entries which match as shown in Table 4 above, which provides some limited cost per trailer information.

This Gerstenslager-built one-ton, two wheel trailer was found at the 2019 D-Day Conneaut, OH reenactment event.  The photos remained stored on my hard drive until I was searching for something else from that event.  With the re-discovery of the trailer photos, I began working on this page and investigating the company on September 9, 2024.  Author's photo.

The data plate indicates this trailer is serial number 35075 and was delivered on January 7, 1944.  Author's photo.

Author's photo.

Author's photo.

Three days later on August 12, 2024, I was at the National MVPA Convention in Oshkosh, WI.  For sale outside the vendor's building was this "Ben-Hur" one-ton, two wheel trailer for sale.  Author's photo.

The owner had this trailer for sale for $3,600.  Author's photo.

The data plate was in very rough condition.  Author's photo.

Once it was increased in size, the data plate revealed that this was built by the Gerstenslager Company and delivered on May 25, 1943.  It has manufacturer's serial number 13261.  Author's photo.

Author's photo.

There was a total of 259,064 one-ton, two wheel trailers built by 28 companies during World War Two.  The 40,412 that the Gerstenslager Company built was 15.6% of the total.  Author's photo.

    
The Gerstenslager Company built 119 of the 6-ton semitrailer vans. 

   
The company also built 130 shoe repair semitrailers.  These were built at a cost of $1,867 each. 

The Gerstenslager Company's Plants:

In 1907, the company occupied this building when it moved to Wooster, OH from Marshallville, OH.  It was located at 572 E. Liberty St., Wooster, and was also known as the Reed Warehouse.  Note that this artist's rendering of the plant shows an interurban line running in front of the plant along with a railroad across the street.  This building still exists and was entered into the National Register of Historic Places on February 13, 1986.  Image courtesy of the Wayne County Library.

This Google Maps image shows the current state of the former Gerstenslager factory. 

This Google Earth view shows that the interurban line in front of the plant is gone.  However, the section across the street has apparently been made into a walking trail.  The railroad tracks are still present and appear to be currently in operation.

In 1929 the Gerstenslager Company moved to this location at 1425 Bowman Street as it needed more factory floor space than was available at the former plant on Liberty Street.  It was in this plant that the company built trailers to help win World War Two.  This Google Earth image and the one below were taken on 11-7-2021.  These images provide views of a factory that has since been razed.  We are fortunate the satellite has not come back over and re-photographed this area. 

This is the same location, but the image was taken by the Google Earth street view vehicle in July 2024.  As noted above, the main portion of the factory has been razed.