#2BFayetteville

"For over 131 years, we've been committed to bringing the highest quality of construction tools and equipment to market," began Vice President of Operations for Marshalltown, Jack Murders. "The Fayetteville location began production in 1982." Today, Marshalltown has more than 400 employees working out of their Fayetteville location. "We manufacture and distribute tools for the construction industry," Murders said. "Tradesmen have known, and continue to know us, for our quality trowels. Trowels have been our bread and butter since the beginning, but we've expanded our line of masonry and concrete tools over the years and also manufacture tools and equipment for drywall and plastering, flooring, paint and wallcovering, as well as asphalt." Marshalltown's extraordinary story began in a small town in the middle of Iowa bearing the same name of the company: Marshalltown. In 1890, two brothers, Jesse and Lester Williams started a small machine shop on East Church Street in Marshalltown repairing bicycles and automobiles, and fulfilling occasional tool orders for local contractors. One local plasterer asked that they customize some trowels for him. The customer was pleased with the improved product and more requests trickled in. The Williams brothers eventually put their trowels on the market. Word traveled fast and they began receiving orders from outside of the state. They moved to specializing in trowels and referred to that part of business as Marshalltown Trowel Works. As sales increased, they decided to officially incorporate Marshalltown Trowel Company in 1905. The first World War introduced Marshalltown to new markets, not just in America but around the world. In 1918, they sent 18,000 trowels overseas for the US Army, in support of its nation's wartime efforts. Soldiers assigned to work on European job sites, including France's Pershing Stadium, did so using Marshalltown trowels. In the following decades, Marshalltown grew to become the largest exclusive 8

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