Campbell Boat Company (1937-1953). Records, ca. 1930s.

The Campbell Boat Company was a boatbuilding firm in Holland, Michigan, Ottawa County, established in September 1937. The company was located at 1691 S. Shore Drive in Holland in a new factory. The company built a small addition to the plant in 1938. In addition to boats, the company also did some steel fabricating. Kenneth H. Campbell, formerly of Calumet, was owner of the firm; H. C. Reynolds was general manager. In 1946, the company had a workforce of 35 males. The company employed only five males and one female in 1950. The company presumably went out of business in about 1953. Collection includes a 1930s photographic slides illustrating wooden sailboats and steel boats being constructed inside the company and boats being launched and sailed near the company’s site, copies of original blueprints for a 1938 building addition (See Hope College Oversized), and biographical materials on Kenneth Campbell, including his personal copy of The Mechanical Engineers’ Pocket-Book: A Reference-Book of Rules, Tables, Data, and Formulae by William Kent (1916).