By TIM ALEXANDER Illinois Correspondent BARTONVILLE, Ill. — Located just south of Peoria, along the banks of the Illinois River, Keystone Steel and Wire Co.’s Red Brand division has been providing premium quality American-made agricultural fencing for farmers and ranchers since 1889. The company was started by Peter Sommer, a farmer said to be “scratching a living from the earth” just across the river from Peoria in Tazewell County. “Peter Sommer came from Pennsylvania and was said to be dirt-poor. He landed with his brother at his farm in Dillon, Illinois, where his brother told him he could have the ‘back 40’ for his own if he would fence the farm,” said Dain Rakestraw, marketing manager for Red Brand. Soon tiring of the backbreaking rail splitting required to make fencing, Sommer set out to invent a machine that could weave steel wire fence. He and his neighboring farmers were the first to try out Sommer’s weaved-wire fencing, finding that the lightweight, weatherproof, easily erected fencing was far superior to wood fencing, which could rot, blow over or even burn down. Working along with his sons, P.W. and John, to crank out around 200 feet of fencing in a 16-hour day, Sommer found he could barely keep up with demand for his product. This precipitated a move – first to nearby Tremont, and then, in 1895, across the banks of the Illinois River in Peoria, where road, rail and river transportation merged to offer a worldwide market for Sommer’s fencing. The entrepreneur decided to call the company he had begun with a single, homemade weaving machine – the Keystone Woven Fence Co. “In the course of 10 years, he went from cranking out wire on his farm with his sons for a few farmers, to owning a major manufacturing company with 3,000 employees and shipping wire all over the place,” said Rakestraw. “He actually invented the first wire fabricating machine, if you will.” A replica of Sommer’s original wire weaving machine is located in the lobby of Keystone-Red Brand world headquarters at 7000 SW Adams Street in Bartonville, Rakestraw added. The first Red Brand fencing appeared around 1925 after an unidentified employee began dipping the tips of Keystone wire and fence posts in red paint, unknowingly but indelibly imprinting the Red Brand “brand” in the minds and on the farms of America’s farmers and ranchers for the next century and beyond. Still protecting America’s farms, ranches and livestock in modern agricultural applications, Red Brand Extended Life products are built on Sommer’s and Keystone’s long tradition of excellence. Red Brand’s strong Class 3 wire with heavy zinc coating is used in a wide range of animal confinement configurations, and is known worldwide for its long life and durability and is the most recognized name in American-made fence products. Red Brand, as part of Keystone Steel and Wire, employs approximately 700 union employees and 110 management employees in Bartonville. It is the only plant in the world to manufacture Red Brand fence products, though the company projects an international footprint. Rakestraw said the chemistry that exists between the company’s agricultural fencing division and its other vertical arms – steel rods and industrial fencing – helps explain its continuing success. Steel for fencing is made on-site by Keystone for Red Brand, ensuring consistent chemistry of the wiring that competitors can’t offer. “Some of our competitors will import wire from this or that source, and they are supposed to have the same chemistries (when woven). But what happens when they don’t?” he said. “You get product that is inferior.” In addition to its livestock confinement applications, agricultural fencing produced by Red Brand is seen in use at high-end Thoroughbred farms in Kentucky and Florida. It can also be found on specialty farms on the West Coast, and in use by farmers in the United Kingdom, Australia and elsewhere around the world, according to Rakestraw. For information on Red Brand’s complete line of fencing solutions, visit the company website at www.redbrand.com |
