The Diamond Match Company has its roots in several nineteenth century companies. In the early 1850s, Edward Tatnall of

Wilmington, Delaware Wilmington (Lenape: ''Paxahakink /'' ''Pakehakink)'' is the largest city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish settlement in North America. It lies at the confluence of the Christina ...

was given an English recipe for making

match A match is a tool for starting a fire. Typically, matches are made of small wooden sticks or stiff paper. One end is coated with a material that can be ignited by friction generated by striking the match against a suitable surface. Wooden matc ...

es by a business acquaintance, William R. Smith. In 1853, Tatnall attempted to turn the recipe into a business at Market Street Bridge over Brandywine Creek in Wilmington. The first matches ignited with the slightest friction, a problem Tatnall solved by reducing the phosphorus content by 25 percent.

Company background

In the next few years, Tatnall was joined by a young Englishman, Henry Coughtrey, who was an experienced match maker, and who changed his name to Courtney. During a business depression in 1857, Tatnall closed his plant, but Courtney continued to experiment with improvements to the safety and quality of his own matches. In 1860, William H. Swift joined Tatnall’s firm to provide clerical and financial services. Though Swift saw potential in Courtney’s innovations, Tatnall felt he had spent enough on the match business and turned the business over to Courtney and Swift for nothing. In 1861, the two of them created the Swift & Courtney Company. They called their new matches Diamond State Parlor Matches, using one of the popular nicknames for the state of Delaware. Demand during the Civil War created a large and growing market for Swift & Courtney matches. In order to meet an expanding need for production even after the Civil War, the company merged with Beecher & Sons of New Haven, Connecticut in 1870 to create the Swift & Courtney & Beecher Company. Incorporated in Connecticut, manufacturing remained in Wilmington, Delaware. Later in 1870, the company purchased the match business of Thomas Allen & Company of St. Louis, Missouri. In 1872, they bought McGiugan & Daily of Philadelphia, and made contracts with Joseph Loehy of New York City and Charles Busch of Trenton, New Jersey. In 1880, everything was sold to the Barber Match Company of

Akron, Ohio Akron () is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Summit County. It is located on the western edge of the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, about south of downtown Cleveland. As of the 2020 Census, the city prop ...

, founded by

O.C. Barber Ohio Columbus Barber (April 20, 1841 – February 4, 1920) was an American businessman, industrialist and philanthropist. He was called "America's Match King" because of his controlling interest in the Diamond Match Company, which had 85 percent ...

. Barber re-named the company after the established trade name of its product, creating the Diamond Match Company. Following the Panic of 1893, Barber moved the Diamond Match Company factory in Akron to the adjacent town of his own creation, Barberton in an effort to revive the town's flagging economy. He turned the abandoned Akron match factory into a rubber products factory (see Diamond Rubber Company). The Diamond Match Company was the largest manufacturer of matches in the United States in the late nineteenth century. It became a part of the Kreuger concern in 1932, when

Ivar Kreuger Ivar Kreuger (; 2 March 1880 – 12 March 1932) was a Swedish civil engineer, financier, entrepreneur and industrialist. In 1908, he co-founded the construction company Kreuger & Toll Byggnads AB, which specialized in new building techniques. B ...

took control of more than 52% of the shares. The Diamond Match Company operated plants at Barberton, Ohio;

(now located in the East Brandywine Historic District); Barber, California (later Chico); Springfield, Massachusetts; Oshkosh, Wisconsin; Oswego, New York, and

Cloquet, Minnesota Cloquet ( ) is a city in Carlton County, Minnesota, United States, at the junction of Interstate 35 and Minnesota State Highway 33. Part of the city lies within the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation and serves as one of the reservation's three admi ...

. Diamond was purchased by

Jarden Jarden was an American consumer products company. Formed by the spin out of Ball Corporation's canning business, the company became a wider conglomerate of consumer brands, particularly in the outdoors and home appliances market. Jarden was acqui ...

in 2003 after entering bankruptcy in 2001, and has been owned by Newell Brands since Newell Rubbermaid's acquisition of the company in a merger in 2016. In 2017, Newell sold Diamond (except the cutlery line) to Royal Oak Enterprises. In the twenty-first century, Diamond remains America's leading producer of matches, producing some twelve billion a year. It also produces plastic cutlery and other wood products.

California railroads

The Diamond Match Company built a

wood processing Wood processing is an engineering discipline in the wood industry comprising the production of forest products, such as pulp and paper, construction materials, and tall oil. Paper engineering is a subfield of wood processing. The major wood pro ...

mill in 1902 at Stirling City, California. A standard gauge railroad was built from Stirling City to their manufacturing plant in Chico for operation by Southern Pacific; and Diamond Match Company also built and operated

metre-gauge railway Metre-gauge railways are narrow-gauge railways with track gauge of or 1 metre. The metre gauge is used in around of tracks around the world. It was used by European colonial powers, such as the French, British and German Empires. In Europe, la ...

branches to bring logs into Stirling City from surrounding forests. The company became a pioneering user of treated

railroad tie A railroad tie, crosstie (American English), railway tie ( Canadian English) or railway sleeper ( Australian and British English) is a rectangular support for the rails in railroad tracks. Generally laid perpendicular to the rails, ties tran ...

s by building a tie-manufacturing plant at Stirling City. Later, logging branches were built to standard gauge; and the company was operating three

Lima Locomotive Works Lima Locomotive Works was an American firm that manufactured railroad locomotives from the 1870s through the 1950s. The company took the most distinctive part of its name from its main shop's location in Lima, Ohio. The shops were located between ...

Shay locomotives and one built by

Willamette Iron and Steel Works Willamette Iron Works (also known as Willamette Iron and Steel Company or WISCO) was a general foundry and machine business established in 1865 in Portland, Oregon, originally specializing in the manufacture of steamboat boilers and engines. In ...

when the logging branches were abandoned in 1952. Diamond Match Company also built an electrified

tram A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...

line to transport employees to and from work. The Chico Electric Railway running along 9th Street and Main Street began operations in 1904, and became the northern terminus of the Sacramento Northern Railway in 1906.

References

External links

Official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Diamond Match Company Chico, California Companies based in Ohio Manufacturing companies established in 1881 Defunct manufacturing companies based in Ohio Defunct forest products companies of the United States History of Butte County, California Matches (firelighting) American companies established in 1881 2003 mergers and acquisitions 2016 mergers and acquisitions 2017 mergers and acquisitions