The Rexnord story began with three founders—and one wildcard. Two of the founders, F.W. Sivyer and W.A. Draves, were known foundry operators. The third, C.W. LeValley, who drifted to Minnesota after serving in the Civil War, conceived the idea of a transmission belt of cast links that would provide the means of a positive drive and not be affected by weather conditions—as opposed to the typical leather drive belts of the time.

Unfortunately, for LeValley, a distributor for the St. Paul Harvester Co. had the same idea. Enter the wildcard, W.D. Ewart, who was first awarded a patent for links and sprocket wheels for what he called “link belts.” LeValley’s patent application was refused because of similarities to Ewart’s design.

LeValley’s determination led him to successfully patent a “chain belt”...

...that did not infringe on Ewart’s work. In 1892, LeValley, Sivyer, and Draves founded Chain Belt Co. in Wisconsin.

 In its first year, Chain Belt sales totaled $13,600 and net worth was $12,300. By 1900, Chain Belt expanded both its product line, to include chain-driven material handling conveyors...

 and bucket elevators; and its global presence, exporting chain to Europe and opening a sales office in England.

At that same time in history, the automobile demanded a change from dirt to paved roads and highways. LeValley designed a chain-driven concrete mixer called REX...

...a product launch that brought with it the creation of a Construction Machinery Division, earned Chain Belt a place in the developing U.S. infrastructure, and a name which subsequently played a significant role in the company’s history.

Production and sales of the world’s first road paver...

 ...blazed a trail toward the company’s first million-dollar year.

LeValley’s management skills and design developments drove sales past the $1 million mark in 1913. Resigning as president six years later at the age of 82, LeValley died in 1921. W. Clint Frye, a nephew of one of the founders (Sivyer), who started at the company as an errand boy when he was 17, was named president of Chain Belt. Under his leadership, Chain Belt became the first company in Wisconsin to adopt employee group life insurance.

Chain Belt prospered through the 1920s and, in 1928, made its first public stock offering. At about the same time that three new Chain Belt products were announced in Thomas Publishing Company’s first, 1933 issue of Industrial Equipment News, the company acquired Stearns Conveyor, which added a line of belt-based idlers and conveyors. In 1939, Chain Belt acquired the Baldwin-Duckworth Chain Corporation, enlarging the company by 40% and expanding it into the roller chain business.

As was the case with most industrial giants during World War II, much of Chain Belt’s efforts shifted toward defense. The company’s first contract was for 105 mm howitzers, Later, the company produced 155 mm “Long Tom” guns...

...refuse grinders for transport, tank trucks, and ammunition hoists. Later, during the Korean War, the company again produced 105 mm howitzers.

The 1950s brought a break in the Made in USA mold, with Chain Belt manufacturing expanding first to Canada, and later to Europe and South America. Simultaneously solidifying its U.S. presence, work began in 1950 on a new general office building...

 ...in West Milwaukee—which stands today as the company’s headquarters.

Moving closer to identifying the company with the REX trademark brought a name change from Chain Belt Co. to Rex Chainbelt Inc. Continuing a string of acquisitions that started in 1907 and extends to the present day, the company in 1964 purchased Matthew Conveyor Company and, for the first time, Rex Chainbelt’s sales exceeded $100 million. Management carefully developed the company’s new product vs. replacement product mix such that demand on one side would offset economic downturns in the other.

Sales through the 1970s grew at 10-20% annually. During that period, Rex Chainbelt bought the Nordberg Manufacturing Company...

...expanded operations in Germany and in the specialty fastener business, invested heavily in operations for its Power Transmission Division, and sold its Construction Machinery Division to an employee-owned company, Rexworks, Inc. Combining Rex Chainbelt and Nordberg resulted in a 1973 name change to what the company is today: Rexnord (Rexnord, Inc. at that time). By 1974, the company had five major business segments: power transmission components, mineral and rock crushing and processing machinery, environmental control equipment, material handling equipment, and construction machinery.

Also during that period, the company continued its strategic diversification of products and markets in order to offset potential weaknesses with other strengths. On-going international growth helped the company become less dependent on the economy of any one region.  

Banner Industries of Cleveland, Ohio, made a successful tender offer for Rexnord stock in early 1987, becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Banner that same year. The plot thickens as, for many years, Chain Belt’s main competitor was Link Belt Manufacturing Co.—ironically, a sister company of this story’s early wildcard: W.D. Ewart. (IEN is tied into this mix, as well, with a Link Belt Co. product also presented in its first issue.)

Later in life, Link Belt became PT Components—purchased in 1988 by...guess who? Banner Industries. With Banner acquiring both Rexnord and PT Components, these two companies who had competed for nearly 100 years began working together...

Banner organized Rex-PT Inc. as a combination of Rexnord’s Mechanical Power Division and PT Components.

Continued acquisitions through the 1990s further expanded Rexnord’s portfolio of industrial power transmission components. Another flurry of activity in the 1990s put the company in the position of being both bought and sold. British firm BTR plc, who acquired Rexnord in 1994, merged in 1999 with Siebe plc to form Invensys plc.

As part of the resulting restructuring, Invensys sold what had become Rexnord Corp. to The Carlyle Group in 2002, forming Rexnord Industries. In 2004, Rexnord acquired Falk Corp. (See sidebar.), another global power transmission leader, for $295 million. This combination ballooned Rexnord’s overall revenue to the magical $1 billion mark.

In 2005, Apollo Management Group L.P. purchased Rexnord from Carlyle. Currently, Rexnord LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of BTR plc, an international holding company based in London, England.

With Robert Hitt, CEO, at the helm, the present-day Rexnord is a global manufacturer of industrial power transmission components including gears, couplings, chain, aerospace seals, industrial and aerospace bearings, and a variety of specialty components. Nearly 5,000 employees strong, the company markets globally through a network of service centers and warehouses, backed by hundreds of distributors.