Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Sioux Tools, Sioux City, Iowa


The socket above is the only tool from this manufacturer that I own.  It's appeared in some previous posts.  Below, a pasteboard box with their logo I picked up somewhere.



Beginning in 1914 originally as Albertson & Company, the company formally became Sioux Tools in the 1960's.  Their products are and remain portable electrical tools.   In the early 1990's they fell on hard times, and Snap-On acquired them in 1994. The original factory in Sioux City was closed in 2002, and production was moved 1000 miles south east to Murphy, North Carolina.  Same old story:  the North Carolina plant was more modern, the state offered better incentives, and the Murphy plant was non-union.  About 160 employees in Sioux City were laid off. The original Sioux City plant was used for a variety of things until it was bought in 2015 by the owner of American National Processors, Inc., one of the largest processors of organic ingredients in the U.S.  The factory is now in the process of being restored and returned to new use.

Source:  Google Maps, 2015
Source:  Sioux City Journal, November 2015
Source:  Siouxland Business Journal April 2017

No comments: