Information Technology Pioneers
Retirees of UNISYS, Lockheed Martin, et al.
Home     Legacy-Defense     Legacy-Comm'l     People     Engineering     Computers     Systems     Facilities     Contact Us     Links&Docs      
Manufacturing     Twin Cities Facilities     United States Sites     International Sites      
Facilities, Twin Cities
1. Introduction
 Shortly after Remington Rand bought out ERA, a new engineering, manufacturing, and management building was built along the Mississippi across the river from historic Ft. Snelling. As the new St. Paul corporate headquarters it was labeled Plant 1, Sperry Park while the facility on Minnehaha was labeled Plant 2. Business was growing so a Plant 3 manufacturing facility was leased on Prior Avenue three blocks south of Plant 2.
     The local commercial operations also grew out of the Plant 1 facility so in 1961 the company began leasing buildings in the suburb of Roseville - called Plant 4. One of these buildings is still occupied by UNISYS and is the site of just about half of the VIP Club meetings.
     In the late '50s even more engineering space was needed so a large building just South of Plant 2 on Prior avenue was rented to become Plant 5. Yet more space was needed in the early '60s so a small building along side the Mississippi just North of the Ford plant became a training facility and document storage building - the first Plant 6.  Another small building alongside Hwy 280 just north of East Hennipin Ave. was rented, Plant 7, was close to Plant 4.

 On this page, scroll down to:

  1. Introduction [left]
  2. 1987 Twin Cities Facilities listed
  3. Articles about the following facilities are included below: Plant 1, Plant 3, Plant 4, Plant 5, Plant 6, Plant 7, Plant 8, and Others

Note that the original ERA building is discussed on the Facilities header page. [lab]

 Introduction continued:    The old Northwest Airlines office building on University Avenue was leased and also called Plant 6 because the Ford Parkway building had been closed.  Plants 2, 3, 5, and the second Plant 6 were within walking distance of each other as was Eslinger's, a restaurant just across University Avenue from the second Plant 6. Lunch breaks, dinner breaks for evening workers, and occasional project parties all took place at Eslingers. A few napkin designs over a cold brew often led to problem solutions thus "Slinger's" was occasionally called plant 9, albeit tongue-in-cheek.

      In 1967 a new headquarters facility in Eagan opened, Plant 8 which houses LMCO MS2 today.  In 1987, shortly after Burroughs bought Sperry to form UNISYS, the corporation occupied 28 facilities in the Twin Cities area, as identified in the table below.

2. 1987 Twin Cities Facilities

All twenty eight of these buildings were occupied by UNISYS personnel in January, 1987 shortly after Burroughs had purchased Sperry to form UNited Information SYStems. 

Name

Street

MN City

ZIP

Notes

Building 1 2276 Highcrest RoadRoseville55113Plant 4 & Credit Union
Building 2 2391 Walnut StreetRoseville55113Plant 4
Building 3 2470 Highcrest RoadRoseville55113Plant 4
Building 4 1301 Industrial Blvd.Minneapolis55413 An old post office
Waters Edge1500 W. Co. Rd. B2Roseville55113Mn/DOT since 1995
Midway 1902 Minnehaha Ave. W.St. Paul55104Plant 2
Shepard Road2751 Shepard RoadSt. Paul55116Plant 1
Sperry Park3333 Pilot Knob RoadEagan55121Plant 8 - Lockheed Martin MS2
Semiconductor Operations1500 Tower View RoadEagan55121Defense Systems
Consolidated Facilities3199 Pilot Knob RoadEagan55121MACS Building
Materials Management Ctr.1200 Trapp RoadEagan55121 ?
Eagandale Business Campus1301 Corporate Center Dr.Eagan55121Defense Systems
Eagandale Business Campus1270 Eagan Industrial RdEagan55121Defense Systems
Eagandale Business Campus1285 Corporate Center Dr.Eagan55121Defense Systems
Eagandale Center1305 Corporate Center DrEagan 55121Defense Systems
Federal Information Systems2535 Pilot Knob RoadMendota Heights55121 was Burroughs
Reconditioning Center2465 So. LexingtonMendota Heights55120 was Burroughs
Education Center2001 Killebrew DriveBloomington55420 was Burroughs
Metro3001 Metro DriveBloomington55420 ?
Corporate Square C3110 Neil Armstrong Blvd.Eagan55121Defense Systems
Corporate Square D3140 Neil Armstrong Blvd.Eagan55121Defense Systems
Corporate Square E990 Apollo RoadEagan55121Defense Systems
Yankee Square 43459 Washington DriveEagan55122Defense Systems
ARTS III Test6301 34th Ave. SMinneapolis55450 Defense Systems (at airport)
Regional CSE5215 Edina Industrial BlvdEdina55435 was Burroughs
CSE Parts5259 Edina Industrial BlvdEdina55435 was Burroughs
Branch Marketing251 Lafayette RoadSt. Paul55107 was Burroughs
Branch Marketing6130 Blue Circle DriveMinnetonka55343 was Burroughs

 This chart data was provided by Bernie Jansen

3.  Facility Descriptions

 

3.1 Plant 1,

Plant 1 opened about September of 1956 according to Jim Hyslop who was hired in December 1956. The 'freeway' road at the top of the picture is West 7th Street.  West 7th to the right leads to down town St. Paul.  To the left crosses the Mississippi River to Ft. Snelling, Minneapolis, and the airport.  The roadway along the front of the UNIVAC building ended at the parking lot.   Near the top center along the frontage road was Gannon's restraunt, the site of the first 'First Friday' luncheon meeting. 

   The rectangle in the picture's center behind Plant 1 shows the footings for a 1965 plant expansion - to become a 35,000 sq. ft. area for manufacturing the Nike-Zeus computer's film memory.  Later this facility housed the first automated back-panel wire-wrap machines brought on board for the CP-901, UYK-7, ..., manufacturing. 

 

 

  

Today, this road is an expressway following the river (Shepherd Road) to downtown St. Paul.  This second UNIVAC photo shows an addition on the east side.

3.2 Plant 3,

 Awaiting inputs. In 1965, the Defense Systems Division1 announced the acquisition of 11,000 sq. ft of existing floor space at Plant 3.  

3.3 Plant 4,

     During the LEGACY, the commercial operations transitioned to independence from the defense operations. Through the late 50s to the late 60s, plant 1 housed a military computer center and a commercial computer center across the hall from each other. During the 70s and 80s the two organizations held annual joint technology exchange forums at Craguns Resort in Northern Minnesota.

     In 1961 near the intersection of Highways 36 and 280, the company1 became the first 'Space Center' tenet as they leased 130.000 square feet of space [Building 1] from the owners, St. Paul Terminal Warehouse Co.  The Univac Data Processing Division continued to grow, adding 23,700 sq. ft. in 1962 in Building 2, 25,000 in 1963, 24.300 sq. ft. in 1964, then an additional 182,640 square feet in 1965 as they opened building 3 [The current plant 4].  [lab]
     Another aspect of the LEGACY was the almost free transfer of talented managers and engineers between defense and commercial as projects started or waned. Glen Kregness, Bob Oulicky, and Tom Soller are three that immediately come to mind. Brothers Tom Petschauer worked at Plant 8 while Dick Petschauer worked at Plant 4 - both in engineering management. [lab]

In 2009 Buildings 1 and 2 were razed to make space for re-development. 

Below is building 1 as photographed in June by Bruce Hyslop - UNISYS employee and son of Jim Hyslop who is a UNIVAC retiree.


Below is building 2 as photographed by UNISYS employee Gary Rist in July 2009.

     1 UNIVAC NEWS TWIN CITIES SECTION June-July, 1965

 3.4 Plant 5

 

The 'Motley Crew' component engineering group.  This 1970 photo commemorates the creation of the automated component tester.  The tester in the picture was the DC & Functional tester that Dave Kirkwood designed.  Of course, you probably know that the piece of equipment off to the left (in front of Chuck Beltz) is a 1232 I/O Console that was tied to the 1218 computer next to it. This tester was in the mezzanine in plant 5.  It was designed and built through the efforts of those in the photo.

 

Standing in back, left to right:

Chuck Beltz, Ben Peterson, Bob Nelson, John Sanden, (obscured) Marv Burns, Ed Genereau, Ralph Kerler, John Gould, Dick Marschafava, Glenn Younquist, Ron Christianson, Mike Farrell

 

Kneeling, left to right: Jim Gengler, Joe Clysdale, Tom Szenay, Al Norlander, Bob Ginsky, Hal Rogers, Walt Makos

 

Standing at the right: Dave Kirkwood and John Schoeberl


We had some bright people designing and building items like this which were strictly for internal use.  Many of these people were later at the Plant 8 semiconductor facility.   Photo submitted by Larry D. Bolton - names from John Gould, Bradley Hinman, Harvey Taipale,

3.5 Plant 6.

Chuck Homan told me [LABenson] that he'd worked in Plant 6 across from the Ford plant when UNIVAC first leased it.  They called it the Micro-Tone building because that was the previous tenant.  This building was the training site for a period of time, both programmers and field service engineers.  The snapshot below shows a card punch, a magnetic tape unit, and a computer along with an instructor and two students using an oscilloscope.

 Plant 6, the second.

Many more people are familiar with the second Plant 6, the old Northwest Airlines building located on University Avenue in St. Paul, just East of Prior Avenue.

Plant 7.

This building was along the west side of Highway 280 between Hennipin Avenue and Broadway. For awhile during the early '60s there was an old airplane shell underneath some of the adjacent power line stanchions.  These has long since been razed and been replaced with a truck servicing operation.

 Plant 8.

The current home of Lockheed Martin MS2 was built in the 60s, expanded in the 70s and has been modernized a few times since then. 

Note the newspaper clipping below - column 1 proudly states that this is the "Twin Cities' 8th".  Shortly after opening, the Military Computer Test Center was moved into the basement from its former location behind the visitor's entrance of plant 1.   [lab]

 

Others:

The original semiconductor facility was in the basement of the west wing of the plant 8 facility. They later expanded and constructed a separate new semiconductor facility at the NW corner of the Eagan property.  The center of the building was separately isolated on air cushions to isolate it from ground vibrations which might have compromised the photolithography steps during semiconductor processing. [LDB]  Early products included MNOS memory chips for an Air Force project and custom VLSI devices for the UYK-43 and UYK-44 projects.  I believe this building is now a NW Airlines computer center. [lab]

 

Just to the North of Plant 8 is the 'MACS' building, a UNISYS commercial systems support building.  This building was erected in 1987 to consolidate the various Burroughs facilities that had been in various locations around the cities.  [lab]

VIP Page 71 updated Thursday, May 13, 2010