Celebrating 150 years of Johnson Controls YORK

Celebrating 150 years of powering innovation, premium quality and global strength

Our YORK products power systems that cool everything from theaters to data centers, and even supported the launch of rockets to the Moon.

Built on ice and ingenuity

In 1874, a group of entrepreneurs in York, Pennsylvania, set out to solve a pressing challenge: the inconsistent and weather-dependent supply of natural ice. At the time, ice was delivered sporadically – subject to season and climate. Their answer was a dependable mechanical ice machine, a breakthrough that would go on to revolutionize food preservation and industrial cooling. That innovation laid the foundation for what would later become YORK, a name now synonymous with high-performance HVAC solutions used around the world.

Momentum quickly followed. By the 1880s, we were delivering commercial refrigeration to the American South. In 1903, we engineered a large-scale dehumidification system for Carnegie Steel, improving both efficiency and working conditions. Just a few years later, we introduced comfort cooling to the public when we installed an air-conditioning system in the Empire Theatre in Montgomery, Alabama. That breakthrough was soon followed by another: the world’s first air-conditioned office building in California.

An era of global scale and space-age precision

By the mid-20th century, YORK systems supported critical infrastructure across continents – military bases, hospitals, universities and commercial towers. When NASA needed to control the climate inside the Vehicle Assembly Building, the largest indoor space on Earth, YORK delivered 10,000-ton chillers that helped make spaceflight possible.

In 2005, YORK became part of Johnson Controls, fusing mechanical excellence with digital controls and smart building technologies. Today, YORK technologies are embedded in the world’s most complex environments – from hyperscale data centers to net zero campuses – delivering performance, precision and sustainability at scale. The legacy of YORK products continue in every smart connected chiller, every precision-cooled data center and every building pushing toward a net zero future.

Relentless innovation. Premium quality. Global strength.

As Johnson Controls celebrates 150 years of YORK, the focus is firmly on what comes next. With every smarter system and every challenge met with ingenuity, we continue to shape the environments where progress takes place – and where the future is already being built.