Western Wire Products

Western Wire Products Company has been a “family business” even before its 1914 incorporation in St. Louis, Missouri. Its origins date back to 1907 when the uncle of the company’s founders invented a machine that made woven wire fabric. The patent on this machine is considered by some historians to be the original precursor to today’s chain link fence.

The 1907 woven wire was made into door and bar mats and sold door-to-door by family members. Soon the woven fabric was used as a bed spring, marketed by the “Great Western Wire Fence and Manufacturing Company.” “The Never Sag Knitted Wire Bed Spring” gave a lifetime guarantee and became part of the furniture lines of several St. Louis stores and national wholesale hardware companies. When inner spring mattresses and box springs became popular in the 1940’s, Western Wire’s bedsprings were phased out.

In 1912, the family inventor Ira J. Young applied for a patent on a machine for forming split pins, later to be known as Cotter Pins. He manufactured Cotter and Split Pins under the name of Wire Manufacturing Company and soon sold his interest in this company to his brother, Harry M. Young and Alvin L. Bauman, a non-family member who was a partner. The Wire Manufacturing Company’s assets were transferred to Western Wire Products Company, which had been incorporated on February 26, 1914. Being in bad health and knowing death was imminent, Ira Young transferred his shares of Western Wire stock to his brother, Harry M. Young. On November 28, 1914, Ira Young died at age 33.

During the Depression in the 1930’s, Western Wire’s prime St. Louis location on the Mississippi River was acquired by eminent domain for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial project. This Memorial later included the famous Gateway Arch. The Depression proved difficult for a bedspring competitor of Western Wire, so in 1932 Western Wire Products Company bought part of the American Bed Company building (35,000 square feet) at 1415 South 18th Street near Lafayette Square. The officers decided to forego their stock dividend in order to pay for the building without borrowing. The company would remain at this Lafayette Square location for almost seven decades.