![]() Master Lock has continued to grow, acquiring American Lock in 2003 and Canada’s largest combination lock manufacturer, Dudley Lock, the following year. ![]() Though Harry Soref died in 1957, his company had already become the largest padlock manufacturer in the country. The sounds mingle to create a symphony that any industrial noise band would covet. One machine shoots out laminated lock parts like a slot machine hitting jackpot. Stamping machines spit out keys and other parts. Other contraptions suck wire off big spools. There are machines and workers everywhere. The place is indescribably huge.Īnd it is indescribably busy. Near the end, I ask if we’ve passed anything twice and Ballogh says no. "You probably had one on your locker at school," says Ballogh.ĭonning a neon vest, a hard hat and earplugs, Ballogh takes me into the factory and we walk for more than an hour. There is one type of lock that is entirely manufactured and assembled in Milwaukee, and I bet you have at least one floating around somewhere in your house right now. "Depending on the product, we ship approximately 3 million parts a day to be assembled at our operation in Nogales." "All of our parts manufacturing is here," says Ballogh. ![]() On the seventh day, there are two shifts. This place is always a hive of activity, because six days a week Master Lock runs three shifts around the clock. Fortunately, an Art Deco update to what is now the main entrance survives, though you can’t see it from Center Street (you might be able to spy it from 32nd). One of the old facades is covered up, though you can still see the oversized novelty lock that adorned the roof above. one of them used to make bridles for horses. They purchased some of the other buildings that were here (on adjacent land). Since then we've had multiple expansions that have gone up. "When we moved here originally we thought this site is so large we'll never be able to fill it up. "We've been at this site for over 75 years," says Facilities Engineer John Ballogh. So, it bought the old Fuller Warren Company stove and furnace factory on a five-acre chunk of land bordered by Clarke and Meinecke, 30th and 32nd Streets, where it has remained – and continued to grow – ever since. The company grew quickly and needed more space. (PHOTO: Courtesy Milwaukee Public Library) You might remember the combination from the one that swung on your high school locker. ![]() In 1935 Master Lock created its first combination lock – which it also still makes today. Soon Master Lock – headquartered initially on Plankinton Avenue in Downtown Milwaukee, and later near the Pabst Brewery – was so respected in the business that Appleton’s Harry Houdini sought out Soref to pick his brain on how to escape the locks he used in his world-famous act.Īt the height of Prohibition, T-men ordered nearly 150,000 locks to aid in shuttering booze-pouring bars and pubs all across the country. His lock was designed to safeguard wartime military equipment.īack in Milwaukee two years later, Soref enlisted his friends Philip Yolles and Samuel Stahl, and according to an official company history, they "rented a one-room workshop, purchased a grinder, a drill press and a punch press and hired another of Soref’s friends, Hans Peterson – this is the founding of The Master Lock Company." Master Lock’s roots date to World War I when, in 1919, Russian immigrant Harry Soref, then a traveling locksmith working as a military consultant, was inspired by the kind of laminated steel used in bank vaults and battleship hull construction to create a padlock using the same method. Some jobs that had moved to China in the early 1990s were moved back to Milwaukee in 2011. About 1,900 work in an assembly plant in Nogales, Mexico, and a warehouse across the border in Arizona. Another 400 or so employees work at the company’s new headquarters and research and development center in Oak Creek. Master Lock employs about 400 people – most are members of UAW Local 469 – at its Center Street factory, which I visited recently. Behind the gates is Master Lock, founded in Milwaukee in 1921.įounder Harry Soref. Most days, however, I drive past one of these sprawling factories that, despite its outward serenity, is anything but quiet inside. There are many sites around Milwaukee that were once home to large, buzzing industrial centers, employing hundreds, sometimes thousands of neighborhood folks, and we lament their shuttering and the effect of that loss on our city and its economy. Number of employees: About 2,700 worldwide, including about 700 in Milwaukee and Oak Creek For details on the company's year-long celebration, visit /100-years. In honor of the 100th anniversary of Master Lock, a company founded in Milwaukee, we're sharing this history and tour that originally appeared in 2017.
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