Happy New Year to all our loyal CHANNELLOCK® customers, partners and fans!

Here in Meadville, Jan. 1 was a particularly special day for us because it marked the beginning of our 125th year in business.

A lot has changed for our company in those 125 years. While today, in the 21st century, CHANNELLOCK® is known the world over for quality pliers and hand tools, in the closing years of the 19th century our business was a small operation, known as the Champion Bolt & Clipper Company. After a winter of forging and improving farriers’ tools in a small shop in Evansburg, Pa. (now called Conneaut Lake), George B. DeArment, our founder and my great, great grandfather, took to the road in the spring of 1886 with a horse and wagon full of tools. As he crisscrossed the Northeast, he sold the horse shoeing tools to farmers, stables and horse-shoers in each town he visited. When all the tools were gone, George then sold the horse and wagon and took a train back home to start again.

The small operation didn’t last long. Word of George’s well-designed and superior quality tools spread, and in 1902 the royal horse-shoer for England’s King Edward VII placed an order for a complete set of farrier’s tools.

Over the years, Champion Bolt & Clipper expanded, changed names, brought in new generations and innovated. In 1933 the company developed and patented a multi-position, tongue-and-groove, slip-joint style plier, which you know today as CHANNELLOCK®. That invention has been the basis for our company’s ongoing success, and the reason we are now a more than 400 strong workforce.

Throughout the year, we plan to celebrate with special events and promotions, explore our rich history and continue a tradition of innovation. We hope you will celebrate with us as we embark on our next 125-year journey by sharing your Channellock memories on this blog. Just hit the comment button below. You can also share your story by posting to our Facebook page - www.facebook.com/channellock. We may even feature your story in a future Blue Board post!

Ryan DeArment

Vice President of Sales and Marketing

Channellock, Inc.