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The already-popular Daisy air rifles
generated even greater sales in the 1940s with the introduction of the
Red Ryder comic strip series. |
It's a Daisy!
Author: Michael Landry
Original Publication Date: January/February 2006
Summary: "You'll shoot your eye out!" is a phrase made
famous by the movie A Christmas Story, which featured a boy's lust for a Red
Ryder air rifle. The Red Ryder was one of an assortment of air rifles made
in Plymouth, the "air gun capital of the world."
Lewis Cass Hough was distracted that day in 1888 when
Clarence Hamilton came to see him. Hough, general manager of a Plymouth,
Michigan, manufacturing company, had plenty to be distracted about.
Occupying twenty-five acres in the middle of town, Hough's firm, the
Plymouth Iron Windmill Company, was struggling. Hough was sweating low cash,
declining sales and a lukewarm board of directors. In fact, it was by only
one vote--Hough's--that the directors had recently decided not to liquidate
the company.
Hough could be excused if he did not want to see
Hamilton, a local watch repairman and inventor, when he showed up with his
latest gizmo. Yet ever-gracious, the factory manager made time for Hamilton.
From this impromptu meeting the two men made history. Before long, Daisy
rifles would be known around the world.
Hough had been general manager and treasurer of the
Plymouth Iron Windmill Company since it was incorporated in 1882. Windmills
had many applications in the late nineteenth century. They were used on
farms, pumped water for steam locomotives and drained marshlands. The
Plymouth company also had a good product. An early catalogue featuring their
Hamilton model (designed by the inventor who was there to see Hough that
day) claimed that it was superior to competitors' windmills and had a
complete warranty. "Should one of our mills fail in any respect the defect
will be corrected at our expense," the company boasted. The only problem was
that Plymouth Iron Windmill Company windmills were not selling.
When the eight-thousand square-foot windmill factory was
completed in Plymouth in October 1882, sales totaled about $11,000 in just
the last few months of that year. But the company could not seem to get
traction, and sales for the entire year of 1885 were only $8,000.
Things were still bleak when Hamilton showed up that day
in 1888 with a long object. "All right, Clarence, what have you got?" said
Hough. Hamilton unwrapped a strange-looking rifle, consisting of what seemed
to be a traditional barrel and a strong steel wire shaped in the form of a
gunstock. Taking a small lead ball and putting it down the muzzle, Hamilton
told Hough to take the strange gun and shoot it. Hough took aim at the
wastepaper basket in his office. Thump! An air-driven shot cut through the
paper that filled two-thirds of the basket and hit the bottom. Hough decided
to take another shot, this time outside, using an old shingle as a target.
After hitting it at ten feet, Hough voiced his delight: "Boy, that's a
daisy!" At that moment, everything changed for the Plymouth Iron Windmill
Company. It had a new product with a new name. Before long, Daisy rifles
would be known around the world.
Enthused about the rifle as a means of turning around
the company's declining fortunes, Hough showed several rifles to the other
members of the board of directors. Although they were underwhelmed, the
directors reluctantly agreed to manufacture the guns as a kind of sideline.
The guns would be a premium. Each purchaser of a Plymouth windmill would
receive a brand new air rifle.
When the company's sales force took the premium to
farmers--the main purchasers of windmills--they got immediate results. But
it was not what they expected. Farmers still had little use for Plymouth
windmills. Rather, they wanted to buy the air guns, which were not for sale.
The board of directors seized the opportunity. On January 16, 1889, they
abandoned windmills for air rifles. The premium had taken over the company,
It is an axiom of business that if you are selling a
product for which there is high demand, competitors will quickly join you in
the marketplace to try to reap the rewards. Ironically, the first air gun
designed specifically for boys was already being produced in Plymouth before
Hamilton visited Hough with that first "daisy." In 1886, the factory of
"Captain" W. F. Markham, a block away from Hough's plant, diversified from
its production of wooden tanks and cisterns to introduce a product that
Markham was said to have seen in his sleep. It was the world's first toy air
gun, a wooden device later called the "Chicago." Hamilton, who initially had
been associated with the Plymouth Iron Windmill Company, had in 1888 joined
with local druggist Cyrus A. Pinckney in founding the Plymouth Air Rifle
Company. They produced a wooden gun to compete with the Markham.
Following the Plymouth Iron Windmill Company's
conversion to air gun manufacturing in 1889, Markham began in the following
year to produce its own metal gun, the "Prince." Also in 1890 the Plymouth
Air Rifle Company produced a gun called the "Magic." That same year, there
were new air gun models entering the market around the country, the
"Matchless" and the "Sterling" from Chicago and the "Atlas" from New York.
By the end of the decade, Michigan competitors included J. A. Dubuar's
"Globe" from nearby Northville and the "Dewey" of the short-lived Crescent
Gun Company of Saginaw. Mthough Hamilton had left the Plymouth Mr Rifle
Company in 1889 to return to the Plymouth Iron Windmill Company, the
Plymouth Mr Rifle Company gun continued production until 1894 when its
factory mysteriously burned.
Air guns were hot and a commercial lightning bolt had
struck the Plymouth Iron Windmill Company. They had a successful product and
a growing market. They employed twenty-five people. By the time they got
50,000 guns out the door in 1890 they had increased sales sixfold to $30,696
in two years. The company was about to get hit by another lightning bolt.
His name was Charles H. Bennett.
As 1891 got under way, the directors of the Plymouth
Iron Windmill Company knew that there was a national market for air rifles;
yet, they hedged a bit. The January 9 minutes of their meeting showed they
considered the guns as "fill-in" products. Perhaps they considered them a
fad that would pass. Nevertheless, they recognized they needed professional
marketing efforts and would have to hire a salesman to sell the guns. They
named young Charles Bennett to the post for $85 per month (with an increase
to $100 per month if gun sales topped 80,000 for the year). Bennett was a
nephew of both Hough and of the board chairman, Henry W. Baker. He fit the
stereotype of the hustling salesman, willing to go to almost any length to
make a sale. (Company lore includes a story of how years later Bennett
responded to a question of air rifle safety. As a demonstration, he allowed
himself to be shot three times in the buttocks. While Bennett may not have
shown his pain to the prospect, he did admit to preferring for the next few
days to take his meals while standing!)
No sooner had Bennett gone to work when he went on a
sales call to the largest hardware supplier in the world: Hibbard, Spencer,
Bartlett and Company of Chicago. Nervous, he gave what he called one of his
greatest demonstrations and sales pitches. Following the presentation, the
company's buyer let Bennett wait for an hour for an answer. He returned and
placed an order for 10,000 air rifles contingent upon exclusive rights for
the product in Chicago. Taken aback, Bennett stalled, not knowing if his
company could produce that many guns. Urgent telegram exchanges with his
Plymouth office spread the deal out over six months. The Plymouth Iron
Windmill Company was now definitely in the air rifle business. Within a
year, Bennett got that $100 per-month salary.
By 1893 the company was making a small profit--even
paying dividends. Another event occurred that year--one as significant as
the 1891 hiring of Charles Bennett. Hough's son, Edward Hough, began working
for the Plymouth Iron Windmill Company as a bookkeeper. The younger Hough
provided stable managerial ability.
In 1895 the company made two major decisions, one
historic, the other strategic. First, it changed its name to the Daisy
Manufacturing Company. Secondly, it joined its good product and skilled,
albeit neophyte, leadership with an unconventional marketing move. It
invested what for the time was substantial money ($2,000) in advertising. In
1897, Daisy solved the problem of increasing competition in the air rifle
business. It entered into a pricing agreement with three other Michigan
firms: Markham Air Rifle (Plymouth), J. A. Dubuar (Northville) and Crescent
Gun (Saginaw). Although such an arrangement would violate today's
interpretation of antitrust laws, the agreement was favorable to Daisy, the
market leader.
By the end of the nineteenth century;, Daisy sales
topped $100,000 and in 1900 the company took the radical step of investing
$20,000 in advertising. The following year, despite poor economic
conditions, sales were up by 30 percent. There was more than advertising in
1900 to help boost Daisy sales. That year the company introduced its
repeater rifle, a gun so popular that it continued as a product line until
the 1970s. Then, in 1903, Daisy introduced its lever-action repeater, a best
seller that continues in production.
Yet, not all was well at Daisy. At the age of fifty-six,
L. C. Hough, the general manager and one of the founders, died of pneumonia.
In coaxing the company's directors into the air rifle business and by
pursuing the aggressive marketing of Daisy products, L. C. Hough was a
visionary who kept his feet firmly on the ground. Despite the pushes in
advertising and salesmanship, Hough was conservative in his guiding of the
firm, always making sure there were adequate reserves and that decisions
made for Daisy were practical and sensible.
Hough was succeeded by super-sales-man Charles Bennett
as general manager with Ed Hough as secretary and treasurer. Each man
balanced the other--Bennett the promoter, Hough with the steadying hand of a
skilled manager. They made for a formidable team, continuing and expanding
upon the management legacy of L. C. Hough.
As early as 1897, Daisy had a passive export business,
with international sales totaling $32,000 in 1900. Appreciating the
potential in exporting air guns, Bennett spent much of 1907 traveling
abroad. The result was an increase in international markets, including
China.
The presence of the Plymouth Iron Windmill Company/Daisy
Manufacturing Company in Plymouth was substantial. From L. C. Hough's 1882
development of the factory in the middle of town, Daisy grew to be the
city's largest employer and taxpayer as generation after generation of local
residents went to work at the plant. By the late 1950s it was estimated that
7 percent of the city's revenues came from Daisy. Also, the business was so
closely identified with the community that Bennett, who became a major
philanthropist, was known as "Mr. Plymouth."
In the early twentieth century Bennett was ready to
become one of the early purchasers of the touted new invention that was
already making southeastern Michigan famous: the automobile. In 1903,
Bennett went to Detroit planning to buy the best-selling car of the day, the
delightful two-seater curved-dashed Oldsmobile. In Detroit, wealthy coal
dealer Frank Malcomson overheard Bennett in a local tailor shop talking
about his planned car purchase. Malcomson urged Bennett to look at another
car not yet on the market. Actually, it was more than a pitch for a car
sale; Malcomson was hoping Bennett would join him in investing in the
fledgling car company.
Malcomson took Bennett to the prototype car, where
Malcomson's partner, the car's developer, joined them. Bennett was impressed
with both the car and its developer and cancelled his plans to buy an
Oldsmobile. Malcomson offered Bennett a fourth of the ownership in the new
car company in exchange for cash and for a manufacturing facility to make
the cars. Bennett took the offer back to the Daisy board of directors. The
ever-conservative board declined, having no desire to diversify from air
rifles into the wild and woolly business of horseless carriages. The deal
broke down on the other side as well: Malcomson's partner, the developer,
was adamant that his car would not be called a "Daisy." Rather, it came to
be named after the developer himself, Henry Ford.
Through most of the early years of the twentieth century
Daisy continued to grow domestically and internationally. If the management
team of Bennett and Ed Hough boosted the company, it enjoyed the addition of
a third key personage in the form of Charles Lefever in 1912. A St. Louis
gunsmith and grandson of the founder of the Lefever Arms Company, Lefever
invited Ed Hough to St. Louis to see a new pump gun he had invented. After
responding to Lefever with a "don't call us, we'll call you" letter, Hough
received Lefever's reply, which said Hough had better come see this gun or
Lefever would sell it to a competitor. Intrigued by this brash
correspondence, Hough journeyed to St. Louis and was overwhelmingly
impressed not only with Lefever's gun, but also with Lefever's genius. Hough
wanted both of them in Plymouth. As a result, Daisy not only bought the
rights to the pump gun, but also set the cantankerous Lefever up as the
research, development and quality control department at the Plymouth plant.
Guaranteed absolute independence, Lefever developed products that helped
Daisy to continue market innovation. Ever prickly (he "quit" Daisy nineteen
times in his career of more than four decades), Lefever continually
preached, pressured, bullied and forced quality on Daisy employees, while
the company's product increasingly reflected his training and experience as
a skilled gunsmith.
As birthplace of the air rifle and at one time home to
as many as three air gun companies, including market leader Daisy, Plymouth
was known as the "air gun capital of the world." As the early years of the
1900s began to add up, Daisy's old competitor, Markham, continued to toil
away across the Pere Marquette railroad tracks in Plymouth with its "King"
brand of air guns. Captain Markham realized he was losing to Daisy and at
the end of 1912 sold his 90 percent share of the company to Hough and
Bennett. Although they were officers of Daisy, Hough and Bennett controlled
Markham as their personal property, adopting a marketing strategy separate
from Daisy. The strategy called for the direct sale of King air guns to
growing retail companies like Sears, Roebuck & Company and Montgomery Ward.
Daisy, on the other hand, dealt directly with wholesalers who were fiercely
jealous of their roles as liaisons between manufacturers and retailers and
who would boycott manufacturers attempting to deal directly with retailers.
At the time Hough and Bennett bought King, Sears was
purchasing air rifles from another Michigan manufacturer, the Upton Machine
Company of St. Joseph. Dissatisfied with the quality of Upton's "American
Dart" air rifle, Sears moved to vertical integration by manufacturing air
rifles itself for sale in its stores in 1920.
By 1927, Sears wanted out of air gun making and offered
Daisy its American Dart equipment and dies and a guarantee of Sears'
business for $100,000. Daisy declined, despite Sears' threat of refusing to
ever do business with Daisy. Jumping at the Sears' offer was the MI Metal
Products Company of Wyandotte, which had been competing with popgun lines
made by both Daisy and King. For two years, All Metal tried to provide Sears
with air guns, but its background as a toy maker, not as a gun manufacturer,
meant that its quality problems were worse for Sears than those of Upton.
Desperate, All Metal approached Daisy and King to see if it could strike
some kind of a deal to get itself out of air gun manufacturing, patch up its
relationship with Sears and still remain in the business. The resulting
agreement among All Metal, Daisy and King called for all three to split the
popgun business and for All Metal to sell all its air gun tools, jigs, dies
and patents to Daisy for one dollar. Then a Daisy truck arrived at All
Metal's factory, picked up All Metal's air gun manufacturing tools and
equipment and took them a mile and half to the Detroit River where they were
thrown in. Daisy and King now enjoyed the removal of the last major
competitor in the air gun business. Despite Sears' earlier threat, the big
retailer became Daisy's biggest customer.
Meanwhile, Daisy continued marketing innovations. While
sensitive to its relationship with jealous jobbers, the company began to
hire "missionary" salesmen, whose job was to go to retailers to set up
point-of-purchase displays to promote Daisy.
In 1930 the Depression was settling over the nation and
Daisy sales declined by 30 percent from the previous year. Yet the company
weathered the economic storm fairly well and management faced several
critical decisions and challenges. First, Daisy bought King Manufacturing
Company (the Markham name had been dropped in 1928), leasing out the old
Markham factory and consolidating manufacturing operations across the tracks
at the Daisy plant. Second, in response to the general deflation of the
Depression, Daisy reduced its prices and wages. Third, Daisy allowed for
little reduction in its advertising budget even though sales in 1931 were
half those of 1929.
Finally, Daisy's management aided the Plymouth community
by developing a creative way to meet payroll during the dark days of bank
closings of the early 1930s. For ten days before the national bank holiday
of 1933, Michigan banks closed. Unable to access their accounts to meet
payrolls, many businesses paid employees in a form of scrip, which was
usually accepted by merchants until funds became available. Daisy was able
to sidestep the Michigan bank crisis by paying employees through funds it
had at Chase National Bank in New York City. Daisy lost that source when the
national bank holiday took effect, yet Ed Hough refused to use scrip to pay
his employees. As a result, he and son Cass, who at the time was Daisy's
sales and advertising manager, took the train to Montreal to get more than
$50,000 cash from Ed Hough's life insurance policy with Sun Life. Armed with
a .32-caliber revolver the men took the money back to Plymouth, where it
resided in an old safe in the Daisy plant until the banks reopened and
employees could again receive wages by check.
The Depression influenced Daisy in one respect. Skilled
area tradesmen lost jobs, including John J. McHenry, who had run the tool
room of the defunct Eureka Vacuum Cleaner Company. He took a similar job at
Daisy in 1933, becoming plant manager in 1938 and remaining in that position
until his retirement some twenty years later.
To aid Depression sales, Daisy initiated a plan that
offered a major discount on the purchase price of a new gun if an old one
was traded in. Besides being a thinly disguised discount program, it also
allowed Daisy to begin a collection of its own products for establishment of
its air gun museum.
Today, there is criticism of some companies attempting
to sell to children by tailoring marketing toward them. It is not a new
technique--Daisy did it during the Depression. In the 1930s children could
obtain from Daisy free "Christmas Reminders" and "Birthday Reminders," cards
that allowed them to fill in the model of the air gun they wanted and the
name of the dealer carrying it. The cards encouraged kids to place it in
strategic places, like under Dad's cereal bowl or Mom's sewing items. Cass
Hough later credited the reminder cards with being a major force in
sustaining sales during the Depression.
Daisy developed themes around air guns. Despite the
misgivings of his father and Charles Bennett, Cass Hough became enamored
with space concepts for Daisy guns based upon the "Buck Rogers in the 25th
Century" comic strip. Borrowing mannequins left over from a space theme that
had dominated 1933 Christmas decorations at the J. L. Hudson department
store in Detroit, Cass launched the Daisy space guns at a toy trade show the
following March. Despite lukewarm initial response at the show, Cass closed
a deal with Macy's in New York for the Buck Rogers guns. Macy's gave Daisy a
display window at the corner of 34th Street and Sixth Avenue in exchange for
a one week's exclusive on the Buck Rogers guns in the New York market. It
was an overwhelming success--enthusiasm for the guns was so intense that
extra police were required for crowd control.
The 1930s also saw the introduction of a cowboy theme
with Daisy guns honoring teenaged rodeo and movie cowboy Buzz Barton and
movie cowboy Buck Jones. However, Cass Hough was always concerned about a
celebrity endorser becoming entangled in a scandal and hurting Daisy's
image. He found a solution in the form of an imaginary cowboy, a comic strip
hero whose name and association with Daisy have become legendary. Late in
the 1930s, Daisy met Red Ryder. Actually, it was Fred Harman, author-artist
for the Red Ryder comic series who came from Colorado to Plymouth to sell
Daisy on a pistol concept he had whittled from wood. Harman and Cass Hough
hit it off and before long they joined with Red Ryder owner Stephen
Slesinger in joint promotional efforts. Daisy's Red Ryder phase, including
the No. 111 Model 40 Red Ryder Western Carbine, was among the most
profitable eras of the company. The Daisy Red Ryder air gun was immortalized
in the 1983 classic movie A Christmas Story, featuring Ralphie's quest to
get a Red Ryder air gun despite everyone's warning that "You'll shoot your
eye out."
World War II disrupted Daisy in several ways. Like other
Detroit-area manufacturers, Daisy abandoned its main areas of business for
defense contracts. The company produced .37mm. canisters, spark plug
gaskets, electrical switches, ball races, washers and dies. Some of Daisy's
work force, including Cass Hough, who had since become vice president and
general manager, were in the military, while others left Daisy to work at
defense plants, promising to return to Daisy after the war. Hough and
Bennett returned from retirement or semi-retirement to the Plymouth plant
for the duration of the war.
After a slow start due to a steel shortage, Daisy was
back producing BB guns following World War II. Postwar demand for consumer
goods was incredible. During the Depression, people had been broke and
during the war, there had been a shortage of products on which to spend all
those defense plant earnings. As a result, manufacturers and retailers could
often command sky-high prices and some of Daisy's customers were willing to
pay anything for a supply of guns. But the Houghs, father and son, and
Charles Bennett refused to exploit the situation and used the same pricing
structure--essentially a cost-plus method--as they always had. Ironically,
this eventually caused a problem for Daisy. As demand for consumer products
began to slacken, the profiteers were reducing or at least maintaining their
previously inflated prices. At the same time, overall costs were increasing
and Daisy went against the tide of other manufacturers and had to raise its
prices.
In the early 1950s, despite lost sales as a result of
steel shortages caused by the Korean War, the Daisy plant continued to hum
in Plymouth. The company invested heavily in the toy gun business and in
1953 developed its highly successful No. 960 Noisemaker popgun, which looked
exactly like a Daisy BB gun but shot nothing except noise.
On July 2, 1954, discreet steps were taken that ended
Plymouth's claim to be the "air gun capital of the world." Daisy's board of
directors, consisting of Ed and Cass Hough, Charles Bennett, and Bennett's
niece by marriage, Pauline Peck, agreed that the nineteenth-century plant
dating back to windmill days was outmoded and needed to be replaced. While
Ed Hough argued vigorously to build a new plant in Plymouth, other members
of the board disagreed. State taxes and labor demands were increasing and it
was difficult to compete with the high wages paid in area auto plants. A
search began to find a new home for Daisy.
Major events occurred rapidly over the next few years.
In 1955, Daisy sales were at $8.4 million, up 46 percent from the previous
year. In 1956 flamboyant, super salesman Charles Bennett died at age
ninety-four. In 1957, Daisy announced it was moving to northwest Arkansas.
According to Cass Hough, it was "a simple matter of business survival":
either move or go out of business. On April 30, 1958, the Plymouth plant
closed. Two months later, production began in a new 300,000-square-foot
plant in Rogers, Arkansas. In January 1959, Ed Hough died at age eighty-six.
Following the move, a company specializing in marketing
support for the automobile industry, Adistra Corporation, occupied the
vacated Daisy plant in Plymouth. Appreciating the site's historic value,
Adistra preserved much of its original appearance. Eventually the plant was
vacated and in 2003 there was serious discussion of razing the building for
development of condominiums. Developers considered incorporating as much of
the building as possible into their project, but the design of the structure
only allowed minimal preservation. As a result, all of the old Daisy plant
was torn down except for one wall, which remains as a historic facade for
the new development. Meanwhile, the old Markham factory building remains in
Plymouth.
Daisy--now known as Daisy Outdoor Products--moved its
production operation to Neosho, Missouri in the 1990s. What was once a
hardscrabble region of the Ozarks was quick to welcome a major employer like
Daisy. Over time, it developed new chapters in its history and came to
impact the area much as it had become an integral part of Plymouth. The
company actively supports the Daisy Air Gun Museum in Rogers. In Michigan,
the roots of the company that made Plymouth "the air gun capital of the
world" are kept alive at the Plymouth Historical Museum.
MICHAEL LANDRY is a Detroit-area native and a graduate
of Michigan State University. He is associate professor of marketing at
Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. A special thanks to
the staff of the Plymouth Historical Museum, especially director Beth
Stewart.
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