History |
The following history is based on my text in A Field Guide to American Residential Doors, page 207.
The Pease Woodwork Company was founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, by Charles H. Pease in 1893 and was one of the major midwestern millwork firms in the mid-twentieth century.
Pease (1866-1936) had worked for millwork companies in Columbus, Ohio, and Louisville, Kentucky before he established his own company on Water Street in Cincinnati. Pease was described in his obituary as "a pioneer in the stock millwork business in Cincinnati" (Cincinnati Enquirer, 8/5/1936, p. 9). As the company grew, it relocated several times before moving to facilities on Spring Grove Avenue by the time Pease died in 1936. The company was called "The Pease Company" and the "Pease Lumber Company" interchangeably from 1906 to 1934.
The name of the company was changed to Pease Woodwork circa 1934, near the end of Charles Pease's life. The company then began to offer the Peaseway House, a line of pre-assembled houses in 1939, and the following year it constructed a new warehouse in Hamilton, Ohio for its Peaseway division (Cincinnati Enquirer, 1/17/1941, p. 17). The company was one of the few millwork firms that copyrighted its millwork catalogs (named the Pease Pricer after 1929) and its pre-assembled home catalog (named Pease Homes). In 1960 Pease introduced an insulated metal residential door named the Ever-Strait Door, which became the company's signature product in the late twentieth century (Cincinnati Enquirer, 11/16/1999, p. 22). The company was re-organized in 1981, with the manufacturing division operating as Pease Industries Inc. out of the plant in Fairfield, Ohio and the distribution division operating as The Pease Company operating out of the old offices in Hamilton, Ohio (Cincinnati Enquirer, 5/1/1981, p. 41). Pease Industries was sold to the Pella Corporation in 1999 (Cincinnati Enquirer, 1/1/2000), p. 31); Pella maintained the plant until closing it in 2010 (Cincinnati Enquirer, 11/4/2010, p. 45).
Millwork catalogs at archive.org:
1929,
1951,
1957 |