Company Origins
The company’s roots began in 1863 when Thomas L. Kay made a transcontinental trek to the west coast and began working in the woolen mills in Oregon. He went on to opened his own woolen mill, the Thomas Kay Woolen Mill in Salem, Oregon. Kay was an immigrant from England and a weaver by trade. He had previously worked in various textile mills on the east coast of the United States. Before opening his own mill in Salem, he had helped to set up only the second mill in Oregon at Brownsville.
Kay brought his oldest daughter, Fannie Kay, into the business and after learning the operation and management of the mill, she became her father’s assistant. In 1876 Fannie married retail merchant C.P. (Charles Pleasant) Bishop. This proved to be a great benefit to Kay’s company and to the Bishop enterprises in the combination of manufacturing and retail sales. The Bishops passed their expertise and knowledge to their three sons: Clarence, Roy, and (Robert) Chauncey.
Read more about this topic: Pendleton Woolen Mills
Famous quotes containing the words company and/or origins:
“... we may remember what the Romans ... thought a cultivated person ought to be: one who knows how to choose his company among men, among things, among thoughts, in the present as well as in the past.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)