Iowa Office Supply Inc. history

Before dying in 1871, Lee passed on his principles of public service in retail to Mullin.

James Lee and Mullin became partners until 1879, when Mullin and G.W. Smith bought all the stock of the company.

In 1883, the firm, now Smith, Mullin and Vorhees, moved north to a location at First Avenue and Third Street in Cedar Rapids.

Morris Sanford, a young newspaperman from Independence, came to Cedar Rapids in 1896 in hopes of getting a job with the Cedar Rapids Republican.

In 1901, the firm was incorporated and Sanford became a stockholder.

Mullin erected a six-story fireproof building at 219 Second St SE that bore his name in 1912.

Sanford was one of Walter A. Sheaffer's first customers in 1913.

Originally established in 1923 by University of Iowa baseball star George Frohwein and businessman James Burns as Frohwein & Burns, Tallgrass has never left the family of its origin.

HON was conceived in a backyard in Iowa on a Sunday afternoon in 1943 by C. Maxwell Stanley and Clement T. Hanson.

Public Company Incorporated: 1944 as Home-O-Nize Co.

Sales from the products made from scrap in 1947 amounted to almost $20,000.

Howe had joined Home-O-Nize in 1948, as the assistant to the head of the planning division.

In 1949, Home-O-Nize signed a contract worth $450,000 with Associated Manufacturers, Inc. to produce a newly designed corn picker that attached directly to the front of a tractor.

The combined sales of Home-O-Nize and Prime-Mover totaled more than $600,000 at year-end 1950.

According to a Gazette article written in 1951 noting the company's centennial, 'When he (Sanford) came into the store, Mullin showed him some pounce boxes - boxes filled with pounce for blotting.

Profitability resumed in 1952, to start more than four decades of uninterrupted profits.

By 1953, total consolidated sales passed the $1 million milestone and two years later exceeded $2 million.

Proving himself a manufacturing genius and a shrewd administrative leader, Howe shared the founders' vision of growth and had become vice-president of production by 1954.

James M. Morse joined his grandfather in the business in 1955.

By 1965, the company was serving about 75 wholesalers located throughout the United States, with about 35 percent of its furniture reaching dealers through this channel.

Having long ago shifted its focus away from manufacturing products for the kitchen and home, the company changed its name in 1968 to HON Industries, Inc.

By 1969, net sales were $25 million.

Holga Metal Products of Van Nuys, California, was acquired in 1971, giving the company a manufacturing facility in the rapidly growing southern California region.

Corry Jamestown of Corry, Pennsylvania, was acquired in 1972, HON's first venture into the higher-priced segment of the office furniture market.

James Morse was stricken with polio in 1976 and his father, H. Hamilton Morse, stepped in to help out.

The acquisition of Murphy-Miller of Owensboro, Kentucky, put HON into the wood seating business in 1977.

The Morris Sanford Co. was sold to family friends Peter and Joan Bailey in October 1978.

In 1980, Wilcox Co., which owned the building, sold it to Harold Wendorf and Charles Loomis Jr.

Heatilator, the leading name in prefabricated fireplaces, became part of HON Industries in 1981.

J.K. Rischel Company, manufacturers of traditional wood office furniture, was purchased in 1982, and the next year, HON acquired 35 percent of Ring King Visibles, a rapidly growing office products company.

He would later become chairman of HON after the death of Max Stanley in 1984.

In 1986, the company acquired Budget Panels, Inc. of Kent, Washington.

By the end of 1987 Office Club had opened five stores.

Sales topped $132 million in 1988, and Office Depot went public in June with an initial offering of more than 6 million shares at $3.33 per share.

In 1989, HON acquired The Gunlocke Company, of Wayland, New York, an established architectural and design firm for office furniture.

In March 1990, Jack D. Michaels, formerly the president and CEO of Hussmann Corp., was named president of HON Industries.

Stanley, C. Maxwell, and James H. Soltow, The HON Story, Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1991.

In December 1992, Begelman claimed in an interview that 10 percent of all fax machines sold in the United States were sold by Office Depot.

In May 1993 Office Depot acquired the office supply operations of contract stationer Wilson Stationery & Printing, a subsidiary of Steelcase Inc.

By 1994 Office Depot had grown to 362 stores, which still followed the company's original concept--warehouse-like buildings that stocked office supplies at 30 to 60 percent off manufacturer's list prices.

In September 1996 Office Depot agreed to be acquired by Staples, its largest competitor, in a deal estimated at $4 billion.

During 1997, HON's sales exceeded $1 billion for the first time, proving that it was on strong financial footing.

In 1998 Office Depot bought out its joint venture partner in France and it did likewise in Japan the following year.

Despite the record results for 1999, all was not well at Office Depot.

After second-quarter 2000 earnings dropped 22 percent, the company's board reacted by easing Fuente out of the CEO slot and into the position of nonexecutive chairman.

In January 2001 he announced that Office Depot would close 70 of its 888 North American stores, leaving the following markets altogether: Cleveland; Columbus, Ohio; Phoenix; and Boston.

The Viking direct-mail business expanded into Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal during 2002, and Office Depot's business services division expanded into Italy.

In June 2003 the company acquired the France-based Guilbert S.A. from Pinault-Printemps-Redoute S.A. for $945.2 million.

Matthews Office Equipment was acquired in December 2004, adding our Davenport location.

June 2011 saw the addition of Pioneer Workspace Solutions in Cedar Rapids which precipitated the branding change from Frohwein/Pioneer/Matthews to a new, unified Tallgrass Business Resources.