Dixon Ticonderoga history

The pencil's name originates in the graphite ore discovered on Lead Mountain in 1815 and processed in Ticonderoga, New York.

1827: Dixon establishes a firm that will eventually be known as the Joseph Dixon Crucible Company, which finds initial success marketing graphite as a stove polish, and later a heat-resistant graphite crucible.

Despite having been introduced in 1829, it wasn’t until the Civil War – when soldiers were seeking a more practical alternative to the quill pen for writing home – that the pencil became widely adopted.

He built a crucible factory in Jersey City, New Jersey, and opened the Joseph Dixon Crucible Company in 1847, which manufactured crucibles, stove polish, and, of course, pencils.

1866: Rising demand prompts Dixon to invent a machine that can produce 132 pencils per minute.

At the time of Dixon’s death in 1869, the Joseph Dixon Crucible Company was the largest manufacturer of graphite products in the world.

By 1872, the Dixon Crucible Company was making 86,000 pencils a day.

Recognizing in 1876 the errors of other people's ways, the company attached erasers to the pencils.

The addition of American Graphite and the city in which it was located (near a fort of the same name that passed between British and American control during the American Revolution) eventually--in 1913--led to a brand name change in the company's pencils.

The company purchased the existing Cane's pencil factory at 531 Davis Drive . The Cane's factory has begun producing pencils in 1920.

So Dixon and others urged the Commerce Department to craft a regulation, based on a 1930 law, that would contain China’s pencil business.

1931 - The Dixon Pencil Company of Canada was established in Newmarket, Ontario.

The restaurant was Pala's Cafe in Wilmington, Delaware, run by Gino N. Pala, who left school in the eleventh grade and began working in his father's fruit market in 1944.

Pacon® started as a paper converter in Appleton, Wisconsin in 1951, (an area appropriately known as the Paper Valley) and has been a leader in educational solutions ever since.

Pala, who had been running the café for roughly 20 years by this time and had profited from a furniture business he and his brother had opened in 1954, had the cash and began investing it with some of his customers.

In 1975 Pala and Brewster bought 20 percent of the shares in a company called Electric Hose & Rubber for $1.6 million, then initiated a proxy fight to gain control of the company.

1977 - Dixon purchases the Eberhard Faber factory in Acton Vale, QC. It is mainly used to manufacture erasers (such as Dixon branded Pink Pearl erasers).

Pala and Brewster combined forces again in 1978, paying $1.5 million for a 51 percent stake in a failing real estate, restaurant, and bus company named Bryn Mawr Corporation.

Pala and Brewster then began looking for another acquisition, and in 1981 found one: the Joseph Dixon Crucible Company.

1982: Wallace Pencil Company, along with its production facility in Versailles, Missouri, is acquired.

Once in control, Pala sold off some of the company’s assets, consolidated operations, revamped some of the company’s manufacturing plants, and by 1985 had paid off $5.4 million of debt.

In 1986, Dixon purchased David Kahn Inc., a manufacturer of writing instruments marketed under the Wearever brand name, then two years later acquired Ruwe Pencil and National Pen & Pencil.

——, "Sharpening Its Prospects: Maker of Writing Instruments Dixon Ticonderoga Restructures for Success," Orlando Sentinel, March 21, 1988.

30, 1990 - The Dixon factory in Newmarket is closed and soon thereafter, the building was demolished. (source) The last Ticonderoga Pencil rolled off the line on July 20, 1990. (source)

——, "Vaulting Back: Dixon Ticonderoga Attempts to Overcome Financial Hurdles, Focus on Pencil-Making" Orlando Sentinel, June 24, 1991.

By virtue of such measures, Dixon once again returned to the black in 1992, when the company reported a modest yet reassuring $327,000 in net income.

In September 1994, in an unintentionally well-timed move, Dixon sold 49.9 percent of its formerly wholly owned Mexican subsidiary through an initial public offering (IPO) on the Mexican stock market.

By 1996, with direct sales to consumers via mass-market retailers continuing to increase, Dixon Ticonderoga achieved revenues in excess of $100 million for the first time.

1997: Prang Soybean Crayons are introduced; Vinci de Mexico is acquired.

As sales began falling in 1999, Dixon reduced its workforce of 1,550 by about 150 employees and further consolidated its United States manufacturing operations as cost-saving measures.

A restructuring charge of $1.6 million resulted in a loss of nearly $800,000 for 2000 on sales of $102.9 million.

Revenues fell to $90.5 million in 2001, and then stagnated at around $89 million over the following three years.

During 2002 the company closed its crayon plant in Sandusky, Ohio (making the Versailles plant its only United States manufacturing facility), shifting the production to Mexico and eliminating an additional 115 jobs.

In addition, Dixon divested its last remaining industrial division, selling New Castle Refractories to local management in late 2003.

In December 2004 Dixon Ticonderoga entered into an agreement to be acquired by Fila–Fabbrica Italiana Lapis ed Affini S.p.A., a producer of design and writing instruments, art materials, and modeling paste based in Milan.

The company has collected nearly $5 million in federal funding aimed at victims of foreign trade abuse since 2005 and has requested millions more, according to Customs and Border Protection records.

In 2015, Timothy Gomez, Dixon’s then-chief executive, sent a letter to United States Customs and Border Protection saying the company was still seeking government payment to cover $149 million in pencil-making expenses.