The Cattaraugus Cutlery Company began as the New York distribution company J.B.F. Champlin and Son, founded by John Brown Francis Champlin and his son Tint in 1882. The Champlins expanded into knife production, and along with William R. Case and his brothers, they formed Cattaraugus Cutlery in 1886, based in Little Valley. The company hired expert cutlers from Germany, England, and other U.S. manufacturers, to produce high quality cutlery, and purchased knife-making equipment from the defunct

Beaver Falls Cutlery Company Beaver Falls Cutlery Company, Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, is a former company which manufactured steel cutlery, razors and pocketknives. The company was founded as Binns & Mason in 1866 by skilled cutlers from Sheffield, West Riding of Yorksh ...

. This is based on

Admiral Byrd Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr. (October 25, 1888 – March 11, 1957) was an American naval officer and explorer. He was a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the highest honor for valor given by the United States, and was a pioneering American aviator, p ...

selected Cattaraugus knives to take on his expedition to the

South Pole The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipod ...

. Over time, the Case family separated from Cattaraugus to form W. R. Case & Sons Cutlery Co., incorporated in 1905. Cattaraugus closed business in 1963. Two separate fires destroyed the building in August 2015 and August 2016; it had stood for several decades vacant (another business occupied the factory's office building, which remains standing, for a time in the 1970s) and had fallen into severe disrepair by the time of the first fire.

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References

*
Case History
'. Case Pocket Knives. 2002. Retrieved 2008-04-22. *
"Take Cattaraugus" Explorers Advised Admiral Byrd
'. Advertisement. Cattaraugus Cutlery Company. *Place, Rich (August 7, 2015).

" ''Salamanca Press''. Retrieved August 8, 2015.

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Further reading