Elizabeth Companies history

Elizabeth Arden continued her reign as grande dame of the cosmetics industry until her death in 1966.

In the late 1970's relations between fire personnel and City officials began, slowly but surely to deteriorate.

FMBA Branch Number 9 was selected over Local Number 777 of the International Association of Firefighters and negotiated its first contract in 1972.

Elizabeth Carbide Components (Latrobe, PA), was established in 1974 by local acquisition.

If an Engine was dispatched to a fire (we didn't go to incidents until 1975) and needed, help, a firefighter would run to the nearest fire alarm box and "pull the hook". If more help was needed, the Duty Chief would go to the box, open it, strike three taps on the telegraph key and pull the box.

Elizabeth Carbide of North Carolina (Lexington, NC) was established in 1977 in response to our rapidly growing pharmaceutical punch and die tooling business and specializes in the manufacture of round compression tooling and hot-forge tooling.

At 10:54 P.M. On April 21,1980, the street box at South Front Street and Elizabeth Avenue was activated for what would eventually be regarded as the largest chemical waste fire in history.

The renowned "O'Hagan Report" was released in November, 1981, containing approximately 78 specific recommendations; some major some minor, some costly and many inexpensive.

In April, 1982, 21 officers were demoted and 53 firefighters were furloughed for 3 ½ months.

Upon reaching the milestone of three decades in business Elizabeth took the bold step of partnering with Hata Iron Works of Kyoto, Japan to establish Elizabeth-Hata International (North Huntingdon, PA) in 1984.

In 1986, when the company was still a subsidiary of Eli Lilly, Ronchetti devised a five-year plan to revitalize Elizabeth Arden Co. and make it more competitive.

When the Elizabeth police Department constructed a new headquarters facility in 1987, one firefighter noticed a memorial wall inside, dedicated to police officers killed in the line of duty.

The company changed hands twice more until 1990 when it was purchased by the Anglo-Dutch conglomerate Unilever PLC. Two years later Unilever established the Prestige Personal Products Group, which included Elizabeth Arden Co. and Calvin Klein.

In addition, Elizabeth Taylor's White Diamonds became the number one selling fragrance in 1991 after the famous actress personally introduced the scent in ten United States cities.

It is where generations of the Livingston and Kean families lived for 225 years until 1995!ELIZABETH FIRSTS