Blaw Knox

	The Blaw-Knox Company was founded in 1917 by a merger of the Blaw Steel Centering Company and the Knox Pressed and Welded Steel Company.
	In the early years the company specialized in producing towers for the fledgling broadcasting industry.
	In 1929 Blaw-Knox purchased the A.W. French Company, a manufacturer of paving equipment. This business became their major focus as highway construction was beginning to boom.
	On April 19, 1955 ground was broken in Mattoon for a new, large plant that would consolidate the work previously being done in three separate locations.
	One of the early products in Mattoon, besides pavers, was a ready-mix concrete truck., called the Hydromixer.
	In 1962 the Mattoon plant built a prototype and then production models of the M116 Cargo Carrier for the U.S. Army.
	In 1968 the Blaw-Knox Company and White Consolidated Industries merged. In 1988 the company built a separate 6,300 square foot training center just east of the main plant. Asphalt contractors from all over the United States and Canada attended seminars there, with about 1200 people a year attending one of the sessions.
	In 1994 WCI sold the Blaw-Knox Division in Mattoon to Clark Equipment Company of South Bend, Indiana. In 1995 Ingersoll-Rand acquired Clark and the Blaw-Knox plant in a hostile takeover.
	On September 30, 2003, after a prolonged labor dispute I/R formalized an agreement with the United Auto Workers for closing the Mattoon plant. Equipment and production was moved to a plant in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. In 2007, I/R sold the Blaw-Knox Division to the Volvo Construction Equipment Division and they continue to produce Blaw-Knox pavers.