York 🇺🇸

York was born in 1874 in York (Pennsylvania), when a group of local entrepreneurs —including S. Morgan Smith, who would later make a fortune with hydraulic turbines— founded York Manufacturing Company. The company made everything until 1885 when it built its first ice machine for a client in Mississippi; in 1897 it decided to devote itself exclusively to ice and refrigeration, solving the problem of irregular natural ice supply in the South. In 1903 it installed a large dehumidification system for Carnegie Steel and in 1914 it air‑conditioned the Empire Theatre in Montgomery (Alabama), considered its first “comfort” air conditioning open to the public.

In 1923 it opened an office in London and air‑conditioned the offices of San Joaquin Light & Power in Fresno; in 1927 it was reconstituted in Delaware as York Ice Machinery Corporation, grouping nine companies, and in 1929 it reached sales of $17.5 million before the Depression reduced them to $7.4 million. The exit from the crisis came with an unexpected ally: in 1938 it manufactured for Philco the window unit “Cool‑Wave” ($395) and on January 1 1939 it signed an agreement to produce Philco‑York room units exclusively, sold in Philco radio stores. Those CW‑40 and CW‑41 models of 3,675 BTU/h with belt‑driven compressors popularized the window‑unit concept; in 1948‑49 York introduced the hermetic compressor and the entire range became sealed.

Renamed York Corporation in 1942, it lived through the war with sales of 38.4 million in 1945 and in 1954 introduced the first single-stage centrifugal compressor, with record sales of 93.3 million. Under its own brand it sold window units until 1965 with period names such as Adventurer, Discoverer, Conqueror, Patrician or Snorkel, and also manufactured for Hotpoint and Norge; by 1970 the range was already called Heat Controller. In 1956 Borg‑Warner acquired the company, which operated for thirty years as York Division of Borg‑Warner; during that period it signed the largest chilled‑water system in the world, the 49,600‑tonne system of the World Trade Center (1968), and the 10,000‑tonne chillers for NASA’s rocket assembly building.

In 1981 it bought Westinghouse’s central air‑conditioning division, becoming the second U.S. manufacturer, and in 1986 Borg‑Warner spun it off as York International, led by investor Stanley Hiller Jr., which added Bristol Compressors and Frick. In 1988 Citicorp and Prudential took it public for 761.6 million; it returned to the market in October 1991 at $23 per share and in 1993 surpassed $2,000 million in sales with a presence in more than 120 countries. On August 24, 2005 Johnson Controls announced its purchase for $3,200 million, when York was the world’s largest independent manufacturer of HVAC and refrigeration.

In Spain the brand is synonymous with Clima Roca York: the air‑conditioning division of Roca Radiadores began manufacturing in Sabadell in 1963 under licenses such as York Borg‑Warner; in 1995 York International and Corporación Empresarial Roca formed the joint venture Clima Roca York, and later York bought the remaining 50 % to turn Sabadell into one of its European production sites. Today York is still alive as a Johnson Controls brand, from large chillers to domestic splits.

In Spain

York is the Pennsylvania brand that installed air conditioning in the White House, and in Spain it had two lives before becoming the Roca surname. The first, unknown until now, begins in 1957: a magazine advertisement from that year (“Install air conditioning for greater well‑being”) offers “the York air conditioner,” a window unit that “filters, dehumidifies, cools” and “automatically and silently draws in outside air,” with a detail that amazes today: “manufactured by Armamento de Aviación, S.A. under license and technical advice from York Corporation of the USA.” In other words, a Spanish aeronautical equipment company was making York conditioners in the midst of autarky, and sold them for 18,571 pesetas through “Comercial de Ingeniería, S.A., exclusive distributors for Spain, Colonies and abroad, Alberto Aguilera 7, Madrid.” From that period there also remain a “York refrigeración aire acondicionado” catalogue from the 1950s‑60s and a brochure from a distributor in Jerez.

The second life is the well‑known one: in 1963 the Roca‑Radiadores Company set up its air‑conditioning plant in Sabadell under a York‑Borg Warner license, and from at least 1969 its advertisements carried the dual brand “Roca York” with the World Trade Center as a selling point. In 1995 the relationship was formalised in the joint venture Clima Roca York, in 2005 York bought Roca’s share and months later Johnson Controls bought York; the Sabadell plant closed in 2015.

For the enthusiast, York in Spain is a lesson in how American technology arrived: first through specific licences to industries with metallurgical capacity (aviation, radiators), then through joint ventures and finally through absorption. The 1957 window of Armamento de Aviación, if any survive, would be, together with the Frimotor Unitaire, the oldest documented Spanish unit.

The key piece is the 1957 advertisement in todocoleccion: a photo of a family at the table, “Install air conditioning for greater well‑being,” the image of a window unit with the label “Precio ptas. 18.571” and the text “The York air conditioner, easy to install, simple to operate and fully guaranteed. Manufactured by Armamento de Aviación, S.A. under license and technical advice from York Corporation of the USA,” with the footer “Comercial de Ingeniería, S.A., exclusive distributors for Spain, Colonies and abroad, Alberto Aguilera 7, telephone 24 78 28, Madrid.” The same address, Alberto Aguilera 7, appears fourteen years later, in 1971, as the headquarters of Clima Autoferros, S.A., distributor of Gibson, which suggests continuity of the same Madrid‑based commercial house for American air‑conditioning.

They complete the trail with a “York refrigeration air conditioning brochure catalog, 1950s/60s” and a “York refrigeration / air conditioning brochure, Jerez,” both on todocoleccion, and, already in the Roca stage, the 1969 advertisement “Roca York Air Conditioning” with the World Trade Center and the 1970 clipping that mentions the “own factory in Sabadell.” Regarding Armamento de Aviación, S.A. we have not found any published history that mentions this activity; it is an open line of research (archives of the INI and the Ministry of the Air).

Pending verification

Exact year when York International bought the remaining 50 % of Clima Roca York from Roca (the consulted source mixes dates) and the complete list of founders from 1874.

History machine-translated from Spanish. Can you improve it? Write to us.