History |
The following is based on my text in A Field Guide to American Residential Doors, pages 202-203:
The Disbrow Company manufactured millwork for over a century in eastern Iowa. It was founded by Martin A. Disbrow (1832-1906) in Lyons, Iowa (later annexed to Clinton, Iowa, where Curtis was located). Disbrow opened a lumber business in a small building in Lyons in 1856. In the 1870s, Disbrow developed a reputation for its line of high quality Eastlake-inspired millwork even though in its early years it did not use the most expensive machines. In 1886, the company opened a warehouse at 1201 Nicholas Street in Omaha (Omaha Daily Bee, 7/26/2886, p. 3). The Omaha plant used a trademark of an acorn with the words "M.A. Disbrow Co. Omaha" printed in the upper part of the acorn. Disbrow also opened a branch in Cedar Rapids in 1906.
Martin A. Disbrow
Disbrow's Omaha plant, 1911
The management of the company was steady. After Martin Disbrow died, his long-time employee Maynard B. Copeland assumed the helm and guided it for four decades. During the Depression, Disbrow scaled back the work week to five days and allowed the workers to experiment with the equipment one day a week to develop new products (Nebraska State Journal, 11/3/1931, page 5). After World War II, the company began to scale back its own production, carrying Morgan doors and Andersen windows. Ernest Glover replaced Copeland as head of the company in 1948, and his son was the final company president. Radford purchased Disbrow in 1981 and temporarily operated its remaining locations as "Radford-Disbrow, Inc." (Oshkosh Northwestern, 2/4/1982, p. 12). Radford painted its name on the Disbrow buildings but closed the operations by the end of the year; the Radford name remains on the vacant buildings today.
The Disbrow company issued its second catalog in 1884. Its title was simply Sash Doors Blinds and Mouldings, but inside it only featured images of windows, blinds, and moldings. Disbrow catalogs published in the early twentieth century (1904, 1913, and 1916) contained hundreds of pages of illustrated millwork. In 1926, Disbrow was one of four companies that contributed to the Universal Millwork catalog of that year.
Millwork catalog at archive.org:
1884
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