Southwire history

With sales of $80 million in 1967, Southwire had two plants fabricating electrical wire and cable in Georgia and one in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

In 1968 Southwire and National Steel Corporation agreed to build a 135,000-ton, $200 million aluminum smelter in Kentucky.

When the oil crisis in 1973 limited the availability of natural gas supplies for his aluminum smelter, Richards drilled gas and oil wells to mitigate the effects of the energy crisis on his operations.

By 1976 overseas business had intensified, accounting for 10 percent of the company’s revenues.

By 1984 the end of the recession had extricated Southwire from its financial malaise.

In June of 1985 Richards died of bone cancer.

In 1986 the company acquired a building wire and cable plant in Utah and three years later purchased Hi-Tech Cable Corporation, one of the largest copper wire and cable production facilities in the United States.

Southwire Company Corporate History, Carrollton, GA: Southwire Company, 1993.

As of 1998, Southwire’s products included building and utility wire and cable, industrial power cable, communications cable, and such specialty products as transit-system cabling.

The market for twisted pair cables was expected to reach $1.8 billion in the United States by 2001.