The Fairbanks Company is a respected provider of top-quality manual material handling equipment. Our +200,000 sq. ft. Rome, Georgia manufacturing facility, established in 1887, utilizes advanced technologies such as robotic welding, electrostatic powder coating, and CNC machining of wood parts to maintain our position as an industry leader.
For more than 130 years, these techniques have expanded our product offerings, making us a premier supplier of casters, wheels, hand trucks, platform trucks, work tables, modern industrial furniture, and dollies, all made in the USA.
Erastus Fairbanks
Thaddeus Fairbanks
The Fairbanks Family
Natives of Brimfield, Massachusetts. Joseph and Phoebe Fairbanks, and two of their sons, Thaddeus and Joseph, settled inSt. Johnsbury, Vermont, in 1815. The family then set up a sawmill and gristmill near the Sleepers River.
Thaddeus
By 1817, Thaddeus was already making a name for himself designing wagons. In the years that followed, he would also produce cast-iron plows and stoves. Soon, Erastus joined Thaddeus in his manufacturing endeavor, and the two turned their sights to a technological need in the community.
Iron Foundry
Thaddeus started a small iron foundry, making cooking stoves and cast-iron plows. These being the first iron ploughshares ever made.
Revolutionizing Weighing
In 1829 Thaddeus was the manager of a hemp mill and needed to weigh what he bought. So, in 1830, he began the design and testing phase. He started with a platform on the middle pivots of an A-shaped lever, the apex of which hung from a steel yard beam, when it occurred to him that by using two such levers, or four straight ones, he could support the four corners of a platform upon knife edges which would all stand in the same relation of leverage to the indicating beam, and correctly weigh a load. This was the first platform scale. His work was so well done that for 60 years all American scales followed his design. At the time of his death (April 12, 1886), there were some six hundred designs, from the prescription scales to the huge machines weighing canal boats or train cars.
Pioneering Scales and Enduring Success
The three brothers joined together and formed E. and T. Fairbanks and Company to manufacture and sell the scales. Erastus and Joseph managed the business side while Thaddeus provided the mechanical expertise. Because of the size of the scales and the relative remoteness of St. Johnsbury, the company contracted with agents and mechanics who were given defined territories to sell, assemble, and repair the scales. The company was successful, and the scales became renowned nationally and internationally. E. and T. Fairbanks and Company continued in business until 1916 when it was purchased by Fairbanks, Morse and Company of Cincinnati and Chicago. Ownership has changed several times, but scales continue to be made in St. Johnsbury (as of 1996).
The Cooking Stove
Thaddeus got patent for cooking stove.
A Founding Legacy
St. Johnsbury Academy was founded by all three brothers, Erastus, Thaddeus, and Joseph. To provide intellectual, moral, and religious training for their own children and those of the community. Unlike most New England boarding schools, St. Johnsbury Academy has educated both boys and girls since its founding.
Joseph P.
Joseph, fifteen years younger than Erastus, had a quick, strong, capacious mind, remarkably well balanced, and made brilliant attainments in law, business, science, history, literature and practical life in all its phases. In finance, in details of the counting-room, in all delicate dealings with men and corporations, his sagacity, alertness of thought and sound judgment won the public confidence and gave steadiness and solid quality to the business. But his intensity of application proved fatal; he died in 1855 at the age of forty-eight, universally beloved for the worth and beauty of his character.
Vienna
At the Vienna Exhibition the only American who was made a Knight of the Imperial Order of Francis Joseph was Thaddeus Fairbanks.
Honored Abroad
He received from the King of Siam, now Thailand, the decoration of Puspama, or the golden medal of Siam. Possessor of the Kingdom of Tunis also honored him with a decoration which was ornamented with “Our name, and which is of the second-class commander of our order of Iftikar. May you wear it in peace and prosperity.”
The Southern Scale Company
A small-scale manufacturing plant was operating in Chattanooga, Tennessee known as The Southern Scale Company. Some local Rome businessmen became interested in securing the removal of this plant to Rome and gave them the plant site on which the Fairbanks Plant was located. These gentlemen were successful, and the plant was moved to West Rome in January 1887 and given the name of Standard Scale Co. Captain A.W. Ledbetter was made president and other officers and directors included D.W. Curry, I.D. Ford, A.R. Sullivan, and A.W. Tedcastle.
Moving to Rome, GA.
January, The Standard Scale Company relocates from Chattanooga, Tennessee to Rome, Georgia and began manufacturing platform-wagon and railroad-track scales at its facility.
Making Moves
Controlling stock in the Company had been acquired by A.W. Tedcastle and on a subsequent trip to New York he made an appointment with officials of the Fairbanks Company. He informed them that he owned a scale manufacturing plant and a wholesale shoe Company in Rome, Georgia and wanted to dispose of one of them and devote his entire attention to the one he retained. Fairbanks was interested in acquiring a location in the South and after several negotiation meetings purchased the Standard Scale Company in 1895.
Bought Out
The Fairbanks Company of New York City bought the Rome plant from A.W. Tedcastle in 1895. Fairbanks decided to retain The Standard Scale Company name of its Rome plant acquisition.
Hand Trucks
The facility underwent an expansion and began producing two-wheel and four-wheel hand trucks for warehouse and dock use.
Name Change
The company name was changed to Rome Scale Factory.
Moving
Fairbanks transferred the scale-manufacturing operations to its Moline, Il facility. Above is a Moline Pitless Scale.
The company changed its name to Georgian Manufacturing Company and expanded the Rome plant again. This time adding gray iron casters, baggage wagons, wheelbarrows and drag scrapers to its production line.
The Fairbanks Co
Name was changed again to The Fairbanks Company.
Charles Morse
Charles Hosmer Morse, a Fairbanks employee, joined E. & T. Fairbanks & Co. in 1850 at the age of 17, opened a Fairbanks office inChicago, from which he expanded the company's territory of operation and widened its product line. As part of this expansion, Morse brought Wheeler and his Eclipse Windmill pumps into business with the Fairbanks company. Morse later became a partner in the Fairbanks Company and by the end of the nineteenth century, it was known as Fairbanks Morse & Company and was headquartered in Chicago.
Fairbanks-Morse Company
Fairbanks office in New York became part of the Fairbanks-Morse company, giving them complete control over the manufacturing and distribution of Fairbanks Scales. During this time the Fairbanks-Morse company produced not only scales but diesel engines, electric engines and pumps for industrial use. This is the Fairbanks-Morse building in Chicago.
Shifting for Military
Plant production focused on customized hand trucks and platform trucks until 1941, when America entered World War II. Like many U.S. manufacturers of the time, Fairbanks shifted its production focus to meeting the needs of the U.S. military and began manufacturing material-handling equipment for the federal government. Wheelbarrow and drag scraper production was discontinued.
More Options
Sam L. Hancock Jr., Plant Manager (1945 thru 1974), brought in stamping presses, woodshop and metal shop buildings.
New Ownership
August of 2021, a new ownership group took over and started Fairbanks Industries DBA as The Fairbanks Company.
New President
Michael W. Brown became president.
Future Products
The company started the Overkill Tables brand, the All-In-One platform truck, and the Fairbanks Furniture line.