Sherwin-Williams Company

(Satellite, the old plant location is now just a bunch of asphalt or concrete remnants)

(Update: their first plant was in Cleveland and that town is still their headquaters.)

What is labeled a Sherwin-Williams Paint Store also seems to be, at best, a parking lot.
But they do have a modern, rail-served plant further south along this former Rock Island yard.

Steve Lewandowski posted
Bob Lalich  I think this view is looking north at Sherwin Williams on the Rock Island Pullman Branch.
Rick La Fever I think Bob Lalich is correct. Sherwin Williams. The tank cars are almost a dead giveaway.
[There are several comments about how badly this plant stank.]

Bill Demko posted
Every time we would drive by the Sherwin-Williams plant my father would jokingly say "put your shoes on".
[Other comments mention the stink.]
Ralph O'sullivan: Also had a plant on the far south side around 130th & the Dan Ryan.
Chuck Bowi: My Dad worked for Sherwin-Williams for 50 years, he started cleaning the labs after school and then went to college and became a chemist for them. He started at the former plant in Gibbsboro, NJ where he worked for 35 years before transferring to Chicago in 1975, he worked in the Steudel Technical building on 115th st. He retired in 1990.
Frank Hammond: Lot of lawsuits from retired employees against the Sherwin Williams Plant in Pullman

Henry Sherwin started his plant supply career in 1866 in Cleveland. In 1869 he helped open a new factory to produce linseed oil, which formed the base of most paints. In 1873, with a different set of partners, they repurposed a Standard Oil factory to manufacture paste paints, oil colors and putty. In 1875 they revolutionized the paint industry by introducing ready-mixed paints. As part of an expansion-by-acquisition program, it bought Calumet Paint Co. in Chicago. By the early 1920s, it was the largest manufacturer of coatings in the U.S. "In the 1940s the company turned to product development to create growth. In the early 1940s, it introduced both Kem-Tone paint, a fast-drying, water-based paint for interior home use, and the 'Roller-Koater,' a roll-on painting tool to replace the brush." The company faced hard times in the 1970s, but a new executive, John G. Breen, was able to turn it around. By 2002, it had total revenues of $5.184 billion.  [case]

An important aspect of converting the industry to the use of ready-mixed paints was the development of the first patented reclosable paint can in 1877 and ready-mixed paints became accepted in the 1880s. In 1884 they converted from a partnership to a corporation and hired the first paint chemist in the industry, Percy Neyman. In 1888, the company "opened a manufacturing facility in Chicago to serve the Pullman Company, and to better serve the farm-implement and carriage industries. In those days, Pullman required as many as 20 coats of highquality finishes for the elaborate interiors of the Pullman cars. Sherwin hired George A. Martin, an ambitious young man, to run the new facility. Martin later served as the third president of the company." Starting in 1890, it put more resources into marketing. It formed and advertising department and started developing the concept of a "company store." The "Cover the Earth" trademark was developed in 1905. In the 1920s they introduced paints for cars that provided a brilliant finish and that dried in hours instead of 21 days. More specifically, both Kem-Tone and Roller-Koater were introduced in 1941. When it celebrated its 125th anniversary in 1991, "it had become one of only a few companies to lead its chosen industry for more than a century." [company-histories]

"The company also has been part of a decades-long legal battles regarding poisoning from its residential lead paint. Sherwin-Williams and two other former makers of lead paint recently agreed to a $305 million settlement with California county and city governments to mitigate poisoning dangers still present in old housing. The defendant paint companies did not admit any wrongdoing under the settlement." [cleveland]

<update>

More info concerning its innovations during WWII.

In the 1940s Sherwin-Williams was forced to make more innovations, this time with fewer materials at its disposal. As a result of the wartime shortage of oil, the company had to create a new type of paint, Kem-Tone, which was the world’s first water-based interior paint. Paintbrush materials were also in short supply at this time, meaning Sherwin-Williams would have to innovate new applicator products as well. The first roller brushes were made during this time, a now industry standard as well. During the war, Sherwin-Williams started heavily marketing a “do it yourself” notion, creating a whole new market for the company. By the end of World War II Sherwin-Williams had seen its sales double, despite the uncertainty of world events. [ClevelandHistorical]

</update>

This excerpt includes the Rock Island yard we see in the photo above.

1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

And this is just the factory.

Zoomed into the above

(new window)

(new window) how they mix up Sears paints in an Orlando plant.



I rather distinctly remember already writing about Sherwin-Williams. About a still existing plant that explains all of the Sherwin-Williams trucks I would see on I-57. And about how my wife found a color pallet of historic colors for our 1920s Four-Square style home and how we had to buy the stucco covering of her chosen color from a Sherwin-Williams store in 5-gallon pails. But all of my workarounds for Google breaking the author's keyword search on April 3, 2018 haven't been able to find what I wrote. I remember when looking at their set of color keys that I was impressed by the task of having to invent names for all of the colors. That was even more challenging than inventing names for each of the crayons in the 64-piece set of crayons that my daughters used to have.

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