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With State of the art design facilities including rapid prototyping that is linked to Cad Cam design facilities Vaughan & Bushnell Mfg. Co is possible the most advanced integrated hammer producer in the world
The company that is today Vaughan & Bushnell Mfg. Co., was founded in Peoria, Illinois by Alexander Vaughan. It began as a plumbing business, which in those days consisted of digging wells and piping water into the kitchens of the local citizenry. Alexander’s business prospered, but the inventive, 18-year old blacksmith had his eye on bigger things.
Believing that Chicago would outstrip Peoria as a business centre, he moved to the Windy City and set up a blacksmith shop in a room behind a hardware store owned by Sidney Bushnell.
Sadly, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed the fledgling Vaughan Company. In its aftermath the strained finances of the company forced Alexander to seek additional capital. Sidney Bushnell offered to furnish the needed funds. The company was incorporated in 1882 as the Vaughan & Bushnell Mfg. Co.
By this time Vaughan’s product line had grown to include quite a variety of tools and implements. One of the first Vaughan hammers, a so-called “killing hammer”, was in great demand for delivering the coup de grace to cattle being processed at the Chicago Union Stock Yards. Besides hammers, tools such as those needed for blacksmithing and shoemaking were also being manufactured, together with chisels, punches, pincers, nippers, star drills, planes, wrecking bars and pliers.
Many years later when the company was under the control of the founder’s grandson Howard Vaughn Sr, a chance meeting at a trade show with a garden tool manufacturer headquartered in Bushnell, Illinois, led to Vaughan’s move there in 1940. Limited manufacturing commenced in Bushnell in the autumn of 1940, and was gradually expanded during World War II. The town’s location and ample labour supply proved so favorable that, in 1950, it was decided to consolidate all manufacturing operations in Bushnell. It is a striking co-incidence that the Company is headquartered in a location that bears its name without having its origins in that place.
Howard A. Vaughan, Jr. joined the company in 1956, was named Vice President of Sales in 1960 and became President in 1966. Vaughan during that time was a major supplier of striking tools, both under its own name and many other proprietary brands, as well. Taking as his goal a substantial increase in sales of Vaughan-labelled tools, Howard Jr. first ordered a major modernization of Vaughan’s manufacturing processes to ensure that adequate production capacity would be available to absorb a market expansion.
Vaughan’s insistence on consistently high quality was recognised when, in 1993, the company became the first striking tool manufacturer in the world to be awarded the International Standards Organisation ISO 9002 Certification.In 1963 the administrative headquarters of the company were established in Hebron, Illinois. A subsidiary, The V&B Mfg. Co., was formed in 1966, and a plant built for the manufacture of hickory handles. Located in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, V&B Mfg. ensured availability of top quality handles. In 1992, GroundBreakers(r) landscaping tools were added to the product line. Innovative in design and construction, they quickly found wide acceptance among landscapers, contractors and home gardeners.
Today’s Vaughan & Bushnell is of a size and sophistication that Alexander Vaughan could scarcely have imagined. While new manufacturing techniques and processes have played a part, the people of Vaughan are the true foundation of the company’s success. Dedicated to the goal of producing the finest striking tools in the world, they have helped transform Vaughan from a small maker of hand tools to the world’s largest manufacturer of striking tools. Vaughan tools are made with an attention to detail that is exceptional. Five generations of the Vaughan family with Howard’s Son Charlie Vaughan heavily involved in the business together with the dedicated craftsmen who produce their products care a great deal about the tools that carry the Vaughan name, and that care is obvious.
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Airstream Communications