Wolf Mattress and Other 150-year-old companies
Here at Wolf Mattress, it’s time to celebrate!
As of 2023, we’ve been in business for 150 years. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20% of businesses fail in the first year, almost half fail within five, and 65% fail within ten years.
But Wolf has been going strong for one hundred and fifty years – what a huge milestone! We couldn’t have done it without the staunch support of the Fort Wayne community since 1873!
So, how did we get here? It all started in 1873, when the Wolf family started a simple mattress business. They made and delivered stacks upon stacks of mattresses to their customers by horse-drawn buggies. Those stacks were often taller than the cart drivers, who had to stand when driving the horse!
While the technology (both for shipping and mattress-making) has changed over time, there’s one thing that’s never changed: our commitment to excellence in our products and keeping production in America. Ever since the beginning, Wolf Mattress has been handmaking mattresses and delivering them straight from the factory (and bypassing warehouse storage and middlemen entirely), proving you don’t always need to go global to make an impact.
We’ve been proudly American-made for our entire 150-year history and have no plans of changing that fact anytime soon. We even vertically-integrated our own fiber division that produces the cotton batting and bonded products for our mattresses and other manufacturers – so we help other businesses keep their processes in the USA, too.
But making products in America wouldn’t mean a thing if they weren’t a cut above the rest, and our mattresses wouldn’t be on the market today if they weren’t up to snuff. To ensure our mattresses keep up with the competition, our leadership always stays abreast of new trends and technologies that can make our mattresses more comfortable and more durable. From gel-infused cooling foams to reinforced pocket coils on the edges of the mattress, you can explore our products and the materials that go into them on our site here.
As we come to terms with the fact that we’re a 150-year-old business, we’ve decided to take a look around at some of the other businesses that are about 150 years old. And it looks like we’re in good company.
Here are a few businesses that are approximately as old as we are:
Yep, that J.P. Morgan! J.P. Morgan & Co., was established in 1871 (although the Morgan family’s particular ties to banking go back further). Initially called Drexel, Morgan & Co., the company’s name shifted through a series of mergers and acquisitions and eventually became a subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase.
In its heyday, J.P. Morgan & Co. financed steel corporations, numerous railroads, and infrastructure projects like the Panama Canal and Brooklyn Bridge. They even dabbled in government money, floating loans of gold to the US government and financing Allied bonds to Britain and France during World War 1.
Nowadays, JPMorgan Chase (J.P. Morgan & Co.’s now-parent company) is one of the largest, most powerful banks in the world, owning $3.67 trillion dollars worth of assets and is considered “systemically important” to the global economy.
Learn more about the company’s doings here.
Wait, who’s Kimberly-Clark Corporation? Oh, just the company behind such brands as Huggies, Kotex, Cottonelle, Pull-Ups, Kleenex, and Scott. No big.
Established 1872 in Wisconsin, the Kimberly-Clark Corporation started out as an operator of paper mills. But they didn’t stick solely with paper mills: they invented cellu-cotton as an alternative to cotton in 1914, which was used in surgeries in WW1 and as sanitary napkins by nurses (which led to the founding of Kotex). After Kotex, Kleenex followed (disposable handkerchief) to enormous success.
As demands and leadership changed, the company eventually shifted their focus to disposable paper products. Now, the company is one of the largest producers of diapers, tissues, toilet paper, and more of our household necessities. Learn more about them here.
Yes, yes. We know we already talked about our history, but with 150 years of serving our local community, we can’t help but want to keep giving more! And with a Wolf mattress, that’s exactly the sort of thing we’re all about – giving you the quality and night’s sleep you deserve. So come experience the difference, and check out an American made mattress with 150 years of innovation and growth!
American Made Since 1873
3434 S. Maplecrest Rd.
Fort Wayne, IN
