![]() ![]() ![]() 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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