Central Rent-A-Crane, Inc. (Hammond)

In 1946, George Carlson came home to Chicago after serving in the military, planning to join the post-war construction boom using "war surplus" equipment he had purchased in the South Pacific. He formed Central Contractors as a taxi crane business, renting cranes with operators on an hourly basis to contractors and builders in the greater Chicago area. In 1949, the company landed its first large commercial job with Standard Oil of Indiana (now Amoco), in Whiting, Indiana. He set up a second company, Central Rent-a-Crane, to service the refinery and growing steel mill activity in the area. In 1977, the Hammond office became the first of the Central Rent-A-Crane locations in the ALL Family.

It has been steadily busy ever since, proving popular in a diverse range of markets including plant construction, upgrade, and repair, as well as major highway and bridge work, health care facility expansions, steel mill improvements, and new commercial and industrial construction.