Leggett & Platt Featured On Hall Of Fame Wall

Furniture World Magazine

The history of Leggett & Platt, at 115 years old the world's largest producer of components and products for customers of the furniture industry, is the current exhibit on the American Furniture Hall of Fame History Wall. The exhibit is located in the Furniture Discovery Center, High Point, NC Leggett & Platt was founded as a partnership in 1883 and its first location was the C. C. Platt Plow Works in Carthage, Missouri. J. P. Leggett, an inventor with several patents, developed an idea for a coil bedspring as a base for the then popular cotton, feather, or horsehair mattresses. He went to his brother-in-law, C. B. Platt for manufacturing capability and expertise. Harry Cornell was elected president in 1960 and the company began decades of diversification and expansion It became a public company in 1967, was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1979, reached $1 billion in sales in 1989 and $3 billion in net sales in 1998. Today, it is a Fortune 500 company with manufacturing operations nationwide, customers and 25,000 employees worldwide. The American Furniture Hall of Fame regularly features the histories of our leading companies as part of its program to collect and preserve furniture history. As AFHF celebrates the first decade this year, the future for furniture history appears to be more secure.