Axel Warenskjold

Axel Warenskjold (August 20, 1867 – October 22, 1951) was an engineer and one of the founders of the Atlas Gas Engine Company. He was also the grandfather of noted opera, radio, and television singer Dorothy Warenskjold.

1917 - Ole Petter Aksel Wærenskjold aka Axel Warenskjold

Warenskjold was born August 20, 1867, in Haugesund, Norway to Hans and Ingrid Henrietta Warenskjold. He finished his education at a commercial and technical college in Trondheim, then came to the U.S. in 1883. He made his way to Chicago, where he received training as a machinist, then got a job at the California Wire Works in San Francisco. After a brief time in San Diego and Mexico c.1887, he returned to the Bay Area where he worked for the Hercules Gas Engine Works.

On April 9, 1889, he married Helen Francis Milton (Warenskjold ) (August 1867 - January 16, 1925), and they had four children: Hans Frederick "Fred" Warenskjold, William Earl Warenskjold, Olive Helen Warenskjold (Schindler)(Close), and Theos Warenskjold. Fred and William worked for Atlas; the 1910 census lists Fred as a mechanical engineer, and the 1920 as a draftsman.

Similarly, William's WWI draft card and the 1920 census list him as a pattern maker for Atlas. Olive married twice and had two daughters. Not much is known about Theos, as he doesn't appear in census data, but is only mentioned as a "late son" in both Axel and Helen's obituaries. 3

William married Mildred Lorayne Stombs (Warenskjold) in 1919, and they had one daughter, Dorothy Warenskjold. Dorothy later attended Mills College. By the 1930, census William had shifted to real estate, but Fred and Axel are still listed as being in the diesel engine business.

Helen died January 16, 1925, and Axel died October 22, 1951, and both are buried in Mountain View Cemetery.

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From The Motor Ship Jan 1917

The new Atlas Diesel engine is built on designs worked out by Axel Warenskjold, head of the Atlas-Imperial Engine company, who has contributed so greatly to the development of the internal-combustion engine on the Pacific coast.

Mr. Warenskjold is a native of Norway, where he received a thorough education as a mechanical engineer. The most valuable part of his training, he says, was received from his father, who was an engineer in the service of the Norwegian government, and at one time a large ship owner of Christiania. The careful and highly practical training thus received, he says, has proven of the greatest usefulness in his subsequent work, and is at the foundation of the results achieved in recent years.

Coming to Chicago as a young man in 1882, Mr. Warenskjold started at once to learn the machinist trade from the bottom up. Completing his apprenticeship, he came to California in 1886, taking a position as master mechanic for the California Wire Works of San Francisco, then the largest manufacturing industry on the coast except the Union Iron Works. Leaving here in 1887, he went to San Diego to install the mechanical equipment of the Hotel Coronado, then under construction, which was for years the most elaborately equipped hotel on the coast. Completing this work successfully, he started in business at San Diego, handling, among other lines of machinery, the old Hercules gas engine, which had been on the market but a short time.

At this time, he began to take a keen interest in the possibilities of the internal-combustion engine, and his practical ideas on gas engine design began to attract attention. In 1894 he accepted a position as designer and superintendent of the old Hercules gas engine works and moved to San Francisco.

Few marine gas engines had been installed up to that time, but Mr. Warenskjold soon brought the marine as well as the stationary engine to a state of considerable efficiency, and the engines gradually gained a wide popularity for the smaller types of vessels. During the ten years that he spent with the Hercules plant, the gasoline engine practically replaced all other forms of power for bay towing, light freight and passenger service, and small fishing boats, and some very successful installations were made in vessels of a larger type.

In 1904 Mr. Warenskjold started in business for himself in San Francisco, organizing the Atlas Gas Engine company, which had its shop at First and Howard streets. This early plant was burned out in the great fire of 1906, after which a large factory was built on the waterfront in East Oakland. During these years the business grew with great rapidity, and after a short time the new plant was outgrown, and a larger building was erected on the present site, near the foot of Twenty-third avenue, Oakland. The increasing reputation of the product for efficiency and reliability brought continued expansion, and now, with the absorption of the Imperial Gas Engine company, the plant is being enlarged to three times its present size.

Since starting in the gas engine business, Mr. Warenskjold has always been greatly interested in the idea of an internal-combustion engine that would handle the cheaper grades of fuel, such as California crude petroleum; and much of. his attention has been given to the design and construction of experimental models of that nature. Though working entirely alone in this line, he soon discovered the general principles essential to success in this type of engine, and as much as twenty years ago built a single-cylinder engine in the Hercules plant that would handle crude oil in satisfactory shape, and is still giving good service. For various reasons, however, the crude-oil engine was not taken up commercially at that time, and experiments were gradually continued with the object of perfecting all details of the design for engines of various purposes.

The result of these years of experimentation is the new Atlas full-Diesel type crude oil engine, which is now offered with full confidence that it will meet the most exacting requirements. While other heavy-oil engines are being made on designs developed in other parts of the world, this is essentially a Pacific coast product. Practically none of the ideas involved have been borrowed from any other source, and all the essential features of the engine have been perfected through Mr. Warenskjold's original researches.

PROGRESS ON ATLAS-IMPERIAL PLANT.

The floor of the Atlas-Imperial Engine company's big new shop was completed early in December, and the crane runway and frame for the building are now about complete. This will when complete be the most substantially built machine shop in Oakland, and capable of handling the heaviest work. Most of the tools have now been moved over from the old San Francisco shop, and the enlargement of the office building has been completed, making a comfortable office from which an unobstructed view can be had over practically the whole shop. M. E. Wright has moved his headquarters from San Francisco to the new office.

A railroad is being built from the wharf to the Bay end of the crane runway, which will give it rail connection at both ends.

The Atlas-Imperial plant is already starting work on several of the new Atlas Diesels, and has more business in this line offered than can be taken. Orders. were recently accepted for three of the 500 h. p. size, and the Diesel engines will be built in sizes from 110 to 1,200 h. p., the latter being in 6-cylinder or 8-cylinder units.

In the gas engine department, the company closes the year with unfilled orders on its books for over 5,000 h. p. in the aggregate, and more corning in all the time.

An item of no little importance is the introduction of the new model Atlas-Imperial fishing boat engine, in 6 h. p. size, which combines the most desirable features of both Atlas and Imperial engines, on which their great popularity among the fishermen has largely been based. The first of these engines are now complete and ready for shipment, and they promise to become one of the most popular engines of their type ever introduced, a large number having been already ordered. Among the orders taken are between 150 and 200 for installation in Alaska salmon boats for this season's fishing.

An idea of the extraordinary amount of marine oil engine business that there is to be obtained will be realized when it is mentioned that during the month of November-December, 1916, the Atlas Imperial Engine company received and accepted orders for six Diesel type engines, and over one hundred and fifty (150) marine distillate and gaso¬lene engines in varying sizes up to 250 b. h. p.

Sources:

https://localwiki.org/oakland/Axel_Warenskjold

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