Wickes Companies was a diversified manufacturing and retail conglomerate. It was renamed after its subsidiary Collins & Aikman in 1992. The company ceased operations in 2007.
History
Brothers Henry Dunn Wickes and Edward Noyes Wickes moved to Flint, Michigan, from New York in 1854, becoming involved in the area's lumber industry. The brothers, along with partner H.W. Wood, later established Genesee Iron Works, a foundry and machine shop; after buying out Wood, the business was renamed Wickes Bros. Iron Works and moved to Saginaw, Michigan, to be closer to a source of pig iron. The company manufactured gang saws and refurbished and resold other sawmill equipment. A separate business was established to manufacture boilers. After discovering a large deposit of graphite on a visit to Mexico, the brothers established the United States Graphite Company. The three companies were merged in 1947 to form the Wickes Corp.[1]
In 1952, Wickes opened a retail lumber store in Bay City, Michigan, the Bay City Cash Way Company. The outlet saw success selling lumber to small independent lumber companies, additional outlets were opened, and the business was renamed Wickes Lumber Co. in 1962. The boiler business was sold in 1959.[1] Wickes was also buying other businesses; among them, it acquired the Michigan Bean Company, one of the country's largest bean storage facilities, in December 1955 in an all-stock transaction valued at $1.6 million.