The First Factory

The steel tapes were selling so well that in 1900 a fac­tory was built in Patchogue where orders could be handled from start to finish. The tapes needed to be checked on a flat surface because holding them in sus­pension would produce a catenary which would make it difficult to check the correctness of the measurement. This was done on a 100-foot board. The factory was built 103 feet long to accommodate the board needed to check 100-foot tapes.