Ely Ensign, head of the Ensign Manufacturing Co., was elected mayor in 1896.
In Huntington’s earliest years, the young town’s biggest employer was, logically enough, the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. After all, it was the C&O that gave birth to the city when founder Collis P. Huntington picked out a vacant tract of Ohio River bottomland to be the railroad’s eastern terminus.
In those early decades, the city’s second biggest employer was Ensign Manufacturing. Connecticut businessman Ensign came to Huntington and established Ensign Manufacturing in 1872, just a year after rail tycoon Huntington established his new town.
Initially, the Ensign plant produced only railroad wheels, but in the early 1880s it began building wooden rail car and soon was turning out thousands of rail cars every year. In 1899, Ensign was one of 13 independent car builders that consolidated into the American Car & Foundry Co. (ACF).
Ensign was known as “Major Ensign,” even though the title was strictly honorary. He continued to head the Huntington ACF plant until his death in 1902. Commenting on his passing, the Huntington Advertiser wrote: “No man did more or worked more zealously towards the up-building of Huntington than did Major Ensign.”
