Needle Specialty Products history

The solution arrived--at first unbeknownst to its creators--in 1864, when another transplanted "Nutmegger," a former Vermont toolmaker, Orrin L. Hopson, and his associate, Herman P. Brooks, made their own pivotal discovery in Waterbury, Connecticut.

A company called Excelsior Needle Company was organized in February 1866 to create a manufacturing concern inspired by Hopson's and Brooks' machine and what it could produce.

By 1868, two years after beginning business, Excelsior Needle had produced enough sewing needles to begin selling them to sewing machine manufacturers, the largest of which was the Singer Company.

Excelsior Needle acted as the operating company of its parent company, The Torrington Company of Maine, until 1917, when the directors of both companies decided to form a single corporate entity, The Torrington Company of Connecticut.

By 1965, the sale of bearings accounted for more than 60 percent of Torrington's total sales, with needles, sold primarily to the textile and shoe industries, accounting for 30 percent of the company's sales volume.

Torrington's needle making business, an intrinsic and formative facet of the company's existence since its inception, was abandoned in 1980 after 114 years of contributing to the company's growth.

After several years of corporate restructuring, Torrington became a considerably larger bearing manufacturer when the company acquired Fafnir Bearing Company in 1985.

On July 28, 2008, NeedleTech Products, Inc., was acquired by Theragenics Corporation.