Chronicling 25 years of CryoGas International covers a vast array of developments in the US gases industry, many of which relate to Linde North America.
The last two decades in particular have been significant in driving the company to where it is today — a major force in the region’s gases industry, with over 4,000 employees throughout the US, Canada and the Caribbean and annual sales of more than $2 billion.
The roots of Linde North America can be traced as far back as 1879 in Chicago when German engineering pioneer Carl von Linde — founder of Linde AG and arguably the gases industry itself — sought to promote the internationalization of his budding business in Europe. In the US, he had sold the patent rights to his refrigeration and ice machines to German-American Friedrich Wolf in Chicago.
But before he could market his air liquefaction plants in the US, von Linde needed to have the American patents and, after what would become years of lengthy hurdles and patent disputes, eventually decided to found his own company in the country. December 1906 would see von Linde travel to Buffalo to purchase land and set in motion the construction of an oxygen factory, culminating in the founding of Linde Air Products. Opened on Thanksgiving Day in November 1907, the factory became the first oxygen production plant in the US.
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