First there was Hickory Chair and then came Century Furniture

Century 1948 Casegoods Plant

As we wrap up our first week of coming back on line in our factories, I thought I would share another story from Harley.  Most people don't realize this, but at one time in the mid 40's my grandfather actually bought Hickory Chair.  I'll let him tell the story.  For those of you who knew my grandfather, you will hear him in these words, and if you knew him you know that there was no better storyteller than Harley.


Well that's another story. Some old families here owned Hickory Chair and the Menzies and the Geitners and some others, and they got this high-powered operators, they came in and they bought Hickory Chair, but they bought it for two or three hundred thousand dollars less than nothing.  The old crowd wanted to get out, so what they did, this new crowd they came in, they guaranteed the inventory and guaranteed the accounts receivable, and when they did that, then they paid them the money, I think it was about $750,000, but you see, the inventory are guaranteed and the receivables are guaranteed, it amounted to more than the price they paid for it.  So they got the whole deal for nothing.  And all they were interested in was, shall we say, to milk it.  And they didn't care where you got a union and whatever, they didn't care. So my two brothers and this gentleman I was telling you about, Pete Menzies, we met them down at the hotel, we said now, "I'll tell you what we'll do, we'll give you, I forget how much, we gave them a profit, I'll give you,..." Oh, I can't remember the figure, but we gave them a profit, provided they got on the 2:00 train and got the hell out of town.  

So we paid them and Bill, my brother Bill, and Pete, said, "Well, we'll take Hickory Chair," and there was another operation called Hickory Manufacturing Company. My brother Alex and Cecil Bost bought it.  They took Hickory Manufacturing Company.  So I remember going down there, let's go down there and see.  I'd never been in the place, let's go down and see what we bought.  And then I went down there and looked at it.  Then later on I was down there kinda looking after it, trying to help a little bit, trying to stay out of the way. But I was back there in the kitchen one day and I said, "Listen, it's not going to work. Either you buy me out or I'll buy you out." Well, they decided they'd take their money. So I paid them off.  

So then that's when I got started in the furniture down there.  Then later on, I sold it to old Buzz Fennell.  He and a group of people got together and bought it.  They bought my interest out. And then shortly after that, why, I decided I'd build a very small little plant.  And that's when I started Century Furniture Company.  And it didn't get small, god, it just got pregnant with it, it just got bigger and bigger and bigger and then I got so involved that I thought I'd never get out of it.  But you're going back a long way on that.  

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It is a pretty amazing twist of fate, that over seventy years later, we find ourselves once again sister companies with Hickory Chair.  Some things you just can't make up, and these stories run deep in our family and company history.  Each story for me holds lots of little lessons.  I hear opportunity, I hear perseverance, and I hear plenty of luck.  Lord knows it takes all three to run a successful business.