The Sharples Separator Works in West Chester, PA (1909). It was home to the Sharples Tubular Centrifugal Separator, the first American-invented cream separating machine. Philip M. Sharples opened a machine shop on Walnut Street in 1881. He mostly focused on iron fencing and mill machinery, but also sold the Swedish deLaval cream separator. He would assemble the separators himself, and noticed a few ways that the separator could be improved. Sharples received patents for his ideas, and by 1883, he had developed the Sharples Tubular Separator. Sharples' separator was lightweight and could easily be operated either by hand or machine. The product was instantly successful, and Sharples purchased a triangular, 3-acre tract of land to build a factory. By 1891, the company had branch offices in San Francisco and Elgin, IL. In 1902, a spur of the Pennsylvania was constructed to facilitate shipping from the complex. At its peak, the complex employed over 1,000 men. Additional branches opened in Chicago, Toronto, and Hamburg, Germany by 1916. In 1915, P. T. Sharples spun off an oil separator company. In its place, the West Chester plant began to produce electric refrigerators. The Great Depression hit the company hard, and by 1933, it had been placed into receivership. Sharples became a division of the Pennwalt Chemical Corporation. In the 1930s, the Esco Cabinet Company moved into the factory buildings.

Philip M. Sharples was the great, great, great grandson of <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/teemu08/8562652642/">William Sharples</a>.

This is an image of a place or building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America. Its reference number is 84003214.