Allis Chalmers electric motor

Hello all. I am not an Allis guy so hopefully you can help me out. I am helping a friend clean out an old building and we found an Allis Chalmers electric motor. It looks to be something less than 5 horse but we haven't got it cleaned up well enough to read all of the tag yet. It is new with the tags still on it. What would something like that be used for? Did they sell motors just because someone might need a motor?
 
AC was a conglomerate- many companies gathered under one name. They were very heavy into industrial equipment. AC built the generators for Hoover Dam.
 
Some of the generators at Hoover Dam were built by Westinghouse and General Electric
 
I believe the first were AC. They were installed over a long period of time, so I don't know if all the first run were AC or not. They have been repaired, and maybe even replaced since. Plus there are a couple of smaller, different type generators there. So, I suppose anything is possible by now. Probably parts from overseas!
 
AC was a company like GE, or maybe even GM, they built a LOT of different industrial stuff. One story I heard about how they came to fail is this: After WW 2 the
communists were looking for a way to "attack" us and decided to attack our industry. They decided on strikes to shut down and cripple certain industries. They didn't want
to attack GM, or GE type companies as they were well known to the public, but as AC made mostly industrial products and were not a "household" name they figured they
would be a good target. And the strike of the late 40s was the beginning of the end for AC. Farm equipment was actually just a small side line to them.
 
For those interested, go to the library and ask them to get "The Allis Chalmers Story" by C. H. Wendel. There are pictures and descriptions of dozens and dozens of
different products AC made. If you have any interest in AC at all it is worth a look.
 

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