Josh:
The 50's was certainly before my time as a Structural Engineer. But, through the 60's and 70's there were a whole bunch of small industrial firms trying to get a slice of that wood connections pie. Simpson and USP, now part of MiTek, finally ran them all out of business. That industry with catalogs of std. parts was just coming into its own as something we could spec./buy, as opposed to having some small shop make 30 of some part which was our own design. I would talk with some of the older GlueLam outfits in your area, they were doing a lot of their own design at that time, both the beams and columns, etc. and the hardware they needed. They will probably have some idea of material grades and design stds. of that era; probably just AISC, common sense engineering design and A7 or later A36 stl. or some thin pl./sheet or bar stock spec. I did a bunch of that work for a local GlueLam outfit during the late 60's and early 70's.