Eagle Picher Industries Inc. history

In 1847, the Conkling brothers went into partnership with William Wood, who later took over the company when Edgar Conkling joined the Texas West Railroad Company.

With new partners, Wood moved the company to a new location in 1858 and changed the name of the firm to the Eagle White Lead Works.

By 1887, a consortium of eastern lead companies formed a powerful association called the Lead Trust.

Unable to sustain the company in light of the actions of the powerful 31 Lead Trust firms (which merged to form the National Lead Company in 1891), Cox hired three managers away from his Cincinnati rival, the Eckstein White Lead Company.

In December 1905, after receiving an invitation to join National Lead, Eagle received an inquiry from the Picher Lead Company, a mining outfit in Joplin, Missouri, proposing a buyout.

A merger with the Picher Lead Company of Joplin, Missouri, occurred in 1906, becoming Eagle-Picher Lead, which evolved into Eagle-Picher Industries, Inc., and finally EaglePicher Technologies.

Swift ordered the company's research department, established in 1915 by Picher, to develop new uses for zinc.

EaglePicher Industries Inc. produced lead and zinc products, beginning in 1916.

In 1919 he ordered the decentralization enterprise, forming an organization similar to General Electric, General Motors, and DuPont, in which specific divisions enjoyed operating autonomy.

1925 - Expands production through the purchase the Ontario Smelting Company of Hockerville, Oklahoma

Now listed on the Cincinnati Stock Exchange, Eagle-Picher entered a difficult period in 1927 when yields from the tri-state mines began to decline.

Arthur Bendelari succeeded Swift as president of the company in February 1928 and eventually moved the company's headquarters back to Cincinnati.

Serious economic declines occurred in the months following the stock market crash in 1929.

The Central mill opened in October 1932.

In 1933, Eagle-Picher faced a serious threat from the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, which had begun to organize workers in the tri-state region.

In January 1937, Bowlby recommended further decentralization of the enterprise, creating fully autonomous divisions.

The $10 million deal was finalized in 1938, and Commerce was added to Eagle-Picher as a separate division, following Bowlby's recommendations.

Production capacity was expanded to meet the new demand, and in late 1941 the company even took over a zinc operation in Taxco, Mexico.

1947 - Begins production of germanium, the first semiconducting material, essential to the invention of the transistor and the development of solid state electronics

Bowlby resigned in 1948 due to a family illness and was replaced by T. Spencer Shore, a company director and partner with Goldman-Sachs.

Back on the acquisition trail in 1952, Eagle-Picher took over the Ohio Rubber Company of Willoughby, Ohio, making it a division of the company.

In 1954, Shore liquidated Eagle-Picher's Paint and Varnish and Metallic Product divisions, which were only marginally profitable, and used the proceeds to acquire the Fabricon Products division of Fisher Body for $9.9 million.

After divesting its Mexican operations for $1.4 million in 1956, Eagle-Picher purchased the Chicago Vitreous Corporation, a porcelain enameling company, and the Gora-Lee Corporation, a Connecticut-based rubber molds manufacturer.

1958 - Powers Explorer 1, the first United States satellite in space

Eagle-Picher failed to develop its own silicon business winding up that operation in 1960.

In 1966, to emphasize its increasingly diverse nature, the company changed its name from the Eagle-Picher Company to Eagle-Picher Industries.

Under Shore, who retired in favor of William D. Atterbury in 1967, Eagle-Picher fell short of establishing dominant horizontal or vertical monopolies yet remained too closely tied to specific industrial markets to be considered typically diversified.

1969 - Acquires the Ross Pattern and Foundry Company a manufacturer of aluminum castings for the automotive, electronics and aerospace industries

Meanwhile, in March 1972, Eagle-Picher spun off Davis Wire to a group led by the division's management for $23.5 million.

1973 - Acquires the Johnson Manufacturing Company, Faulkner Concrete Pipe and Plas Chem, an anticorrosion chemical company

1976 - Purchase Elmac, a mining supply company and Pritchett Engineering, a precision machining company serving the petroleum industry

In 1979, Press and his wife Thelma filed a lawsuit against EaglePicher and 21 other manufacturers to recover the costs of his asbestos-related disease.

By 1982, injured workers diagnosed with mesothelioma and other asbestos diseases began filing lawsuits against the company.

Petry succeeded Atterbury as chairperson in 1989 and was replaced as president by John W. Painter.

In 1991, EaglePicher filed for bankruptcy protection while facing more than $2.5 billion in asbestos-related legal claims.

In March 1992, Painter retired, and his duties were assumed again by Thomas Petry.

1995 - Created a new technologies division by combining its electronics division with its specialty materials division and directs its attention to creating power systems for space satellites

The company reorganized in 1996 and established an asbestos trust fund of $400 million to cover existing and future claims.

Personal Injury Settlement Trust was established and began accepting claims in August 1997.

In early 1998 Eagle-Picher was acquired by Granaria Holdings B.V., a Dutch investment firm, for more than $700 million.

2000 - Delivers first lithium ion battery for military aircraft, the B-2

2004 - Develops first human implanted lithium-ion cell

EaglePicher filed for bankruptcy a second time in 2005, due to more than $500 million in new debt from asbestos and other environmental claims.

Assisting mesothelioma patients and their loved ones since 2006.

2007 - Opens new state-of-the-art lithium-ion facility in Joplin

It still operates today as EaglePicher Technologies, but the majority of its subsidiaries have been sold to other companies. It was sold to OM Group Inc. (now known as Vectra) in 2010.

2011 - Produces the first implantable leadless pacemaker battery

2015 - Rapid Innovation Funding awarded to develop Joint Strike Fighter battery

The company acquired San Francisco-based lithium ion Energy Storage System (ESS) manufacturer Lithiumstart Inc. in February 2017.

2019 - Names Rich Hunter as chief executive officer

In January 2021, the trust approved maintaining the payment percentage at 33%, which is considered high compared to other asbestos trust funds.