Of the great American watch houses, who made the best wrist watches?

Hamilton is generally considered the finest, perhaps equalled by Illinois, but there were other great watches made by Elgin and Waltham.

As soon as I post this, others will disagree and have their own opinions.

Bulova,Gruen.

Hamilton

I'd like to say Hamilton,in light of their spectacularly styled high fashion electric and mechanical watches, hands down the most elegant and beautifully designed watches ever made in America , but it was only the Bulova Watch Company that designed and built a watch that was accurate and dependable enough to run the railways of both the USA and Canada

Thats right America runs on Bulova

I would say Hamilton, Elgin, and Bulova. In no particular order.

Where does Waltham fit in this picture?

its hard to place all those watches in order
waltham made some great watches as well 21/19jewels

Very nice post Peter, Bulova and the very first commercial ever shown on TV ,talk about a leading edge company

without much question Hamilton. Their final handwound watch movement was the 770 was an extremely fine movement and achieved complete interchangeability of watch parts to the extent they no longer used serial numbers. It also earned them the nickname of the Patek Philippe of America. Meanwhile, Patek couldn't make a watch as fine and interchangeable as Hamilton.