Success had humble roots
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, March 21, 2004
HICKORY, N.C. — HICKORY, N.C.— Persistence pays off.
That could be the motto of Hickory Springs, a success story that followed a number of missteps for company founder Parks Cornelius Underdown.
Today he is enshrined in the American Furniture Hall of Fame, but Underdown got off to a rocky start.
"Parks had been involved in quite a few Hickory-area joint ventures, most failures, in the home furnishings and paper industries," a history of Hickory Springs notes. He founded Hickory Springs in 1944, beginning as a producer of innerspring units for mattresses. The first facility was a small shack. That idea was a hit.
Hickory Springs quickly developed other wire-based coiled products for the furniture industry, which was just beginning to blossom in the Hickory area, where today it is solidly established. Metal stamped products, such as rocker swivels and bed rails, launched a product line that would eventually include sofa-sleeper mechanisms and a variety of motion furniture hardware.
In the mid-1950s, the company began fabricating foam rubber, and later added flexible polyurethane foam, brought in by rail from the Northeast. By 1960 it was producing its own polyurethane foam, a category that has grown steadily over the years. Today, the Hickory Springs Foam Product Group, with six pouring plants and 30 fabrication locations, is the largest foam supplier to the furniture industry, the company says.
Building on relationships it had established in the furniture and bedding industries, Hickory Springs has added product lines over the years. Hickory Springs Converting provides upholstery supply items. Hickory Springs Fibers produces thermo-bonded polyester fiber batting. Plastic Technology Inc. manufactures extruded polyethylene for use in several industries. Hickory Springs Wire Technology produces wire of various gauges.
"In this day of mergers and downsizing, Hickory Springs remains a vibrant, privately owned family business," the company's history says. The idea that led to the founding of Hickory Springs has proved to a winner.
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