Lufkin (brand)

For the manufacturer of heavy equipment in Lufkin, Texas, see Lufkin Industries.

Lufkin is a brand featuring primarily measurement tools such as calipers, gauges, micrometers, and measuring tapes. Lufkin is a brand of Apex Tool Group.

Lufkin

Product type	Tape measure
Owner	Apex Tool Group (2010)
Country	United States
Introduced	1869
Previous owners	Cooper Industries (1967)
Website	lufkintool.com

History

Early Lufkin logo

The company was founded by Edward Taylor Lufkin, an American Civil War veteran of the Sixtieth Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry in Cleveland, Ohio, 1869 and was originally named E.T. Lufkin Board and Log Rule Manufacturing Company. Its Canadian manufacturing plant was first at Windsor, Ontario and later at Barrie, Ontario. The company's headquarters and chief U.S. manufacturing plant later moved to Saginaw, Michigan, and remained there for decades.

The company was acquired in 1967 by Cooper Industries, which aimed to create a stable of hand tools brands through acquisitions. The Saginaw plant was soon closed and a new plant in Apex, North Carolina became the chief U.S. manufacturing plant.

The brand was a member of the Cooper Tools group until that group was sold off to form Apex Tool Group in 2012 and Cooper Industries was acquired by Eaton Corporation.

Innovations

Throughout its history Lufkin patented a variety of devices and manufacturing processes.

• US 149321, Lufkin, Edward Taylor, "Improvement in Board Measures", issued April 7, 1874 
• US 272279, Lufkin, Edward Taylor, "Headed Lumber Rule", issued February 13, 1883 
• US 272892, Lufkin, Edward Taylor, "Machine for forming and dressing lumber-rules", issued February 27, 1883 

Gallery

• 
  The Lufkin Rule Company plant in Saginaw, Michigan as it was c.1918
• 
  Lufkin tape measure

External links

• Official website
• The Lufkin Rule Company Origins, a genealogy page about Edward Taylor Lufkin at the Internet Archive