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Daisy. Today Daisy is a leading youth sports and BB gun manufacturer that most of us at least know about. Perhaps a few of us have even owned a Daisy BB gun at some point in our lives. Here to tell the story of the company is Joe Murphy, the chairman of the board. at the Daisy Aragon Museum.
in beautiful Rogers, Arkansas. Take it away, Joe. Daisy is what's considered to be a super brand. A super brand is one that survives in one business for a great length of time. It's also one.
That's identified by top-of-mind awareness. When you ask somebody to To name a soda company, you're always going to hear Coca-Cola. When you ask somebody to name a tractor company, you're always going to hear John Deere. Maybe first. Certainly within the first two, when you ask somebody to name a BB gun, inevitably DAISY is over 98% of the time.
the first words that come out of their mouth unaided. My name is Joe Murphy. I worked for Daisy Manufacturing Company from 1999 to 2017. During that time, I helped to develop and oversee the nonprofit corporation Daisy Air Gun Museum, the Rogers Daisy Airgun Museum. and I remain as chairman of the board of that nonprofit corporation today.
A lot of people want to know about Daisy Manufacturing, which is the most popular brand of air gun, a brand that everyone knows. But a lot of people want to know how did Daisy get its name.
Well You really can't tell the story of Daisy Manufacturing Company without dealing with three companies that were in business in the 1880s in Plymouth, Michigan. By the way, Plymouth is just today outside of Detroit. And even back then, it was not a far buggy ride from downtown Detroit out to Plymouth. And Plymouth was, as Detroit is, a very industrial town. It had a railroad and it had a river.
And back then if you had a railroad in the river you had industry or you would soon have industry. The three companies, though, that I think we need to talk about a little bit are Mark and Manufacturing. the Plymouth Iron Windmill Company, formed by Clarence Hamilton, and the Plymouth Air Rifle Company, which was Hamilton's company through which he made some air guns. Markham Manufacturing, founded by a gentleman named Phil Markham in 1879, made buckets and cisterns and horse troughs. They were in the business of making things out of wood that would hold water.
And Phil Markham and his son first envisioned the idea and produced a little wood air gun in 1886. And they took it up to Chicago.
Now, in our museum, we have an example of this gun, and if you look at it, it's a slat of wood, much like would be a stave from a barrel, only it's not bent. And they've inserted a little brass barrel in it, and it's a break-action gun. And so they were just toying with the idea of producing this. They took it up to a show in Chicago and there was a distributor there that said, we want exclusive rights to this gun. But you have to name it the Chicago.
So they were by two years later producing about a hundred guns a day. and they actually built a new factory. totally d dedicated to their air rifle business. The Plymouth Air Rifle Company was owned by a gentleman named Clarence Hamilton. Who was a prolific inventor of lots of things and repairers of lots of things and If you ever search US Patentsandtrademarks.gov, you'll find lots of patents by Clarence J.
Hamilton. and in eighteen eighty two he founded another company called the Plymouth Iron Windmill Company. Most windmills back then were made out of wood. The derricks were made out of wood, and the blades were made out of wood, and they had a vane, like a tail, to them, that would orient the face of the windmill into the wind. mister Hamilton's windmill was he called it the iron windmill.
It was all iron and steel. And these were used for today we think of windmills as producing energy and wind the energy for electricity. No electricity in 1882, so this was to pump water for stock. at the farm. And so he invents this windmill.
It has a rudder instead of a tail, and it has a counterbalance weight. And those two things not only would orient the windmill into the wind, but at different wind speeds, the blades of the windmill would actually cant or turn a little bit, as an airplane propeller does at different speeds, in order to more efficiently turn. turn the wind into a pumping motion energy.
So the windmill company was in business and selling the steel windmill. They hired a salesman who would ride out about a 100 mile radius territory to try to sell the windmill. the farmers. At the same time Hamilton, the inventor of the windmill, had built a little wooden gun similar to Markham's gun. and he was only selling about fifty guns a day.
Much like when he produced the windmill, windmills were all made out of wood, he made a steel one because he thought it would be better. He looked at the wooden Markham guns and he thought, I can make a better one out of steel.
So he made a little steel, what's now referred to as a wire stock or a wireframe gun in that the stock of the gun was just a piece of wire bent into the shape of a gunstock. And then he realized he really didn't have the capability to produce those, certainly not hundreds of them a day.
So he took it to the general manager of the windmill company, a man by the name of Louis Cass Hough. And he says, Lewis, I made this in my garage. I can't produce them to the capacity I think I should have to do. But the windmill company could produce this gun for us. And this would be a good product diversification.
Uh By 1888, the time at which he made this little all-steel BB gun air rifle, the windmill company was struggling. They realized that their windmill literally weighed a ton. and that they could only distribute in about a 100 mile radius.
So they're very limited in their marketing territory. Most farmers had a windmill, so it's a better windmill, but you need a better windmill when you have one that's working that's made out of wood.
So they actually had a board meeting in which they polled all the officers of the board whether or not they should file bankruptcy. And we, DAISY Manufacturing today, are very thankful that it failed by one vote, that of the general manager.
So, when Clarence took this little gun to the general manager of the windmill company and said we could diversify. He was actually trying to save his own company also.
So mister Lewis Cass Huff takes the gun, fires it into his waistbasket, he likes it. Takes it outside, he puts a little shingle up against the stump, and he fires the BB into the shingle. It splits the shingle. And he turns to Clarence and he wants to tell him how much he likes the guy. I love having young people in the museum and asking them, what would you tell me if I handed you something you really liked?
And you wanted to express that to me. And they say, it's cool. That gun's cool. That gun's radical. That gun's awesome.
And I tell them we could be the awesome radical sick air gun company today. But the colloquialism that dates back to as early as 1880 was: it's a daisy. If you liked it, It's a daisy.
So there are two recordings of that statement. One is: boy, it's a daisy. One is Clarence, it's a daisy. Frankly, I don't know that it matters, but the idea was the gun was exceptional. He liked it, he called it a daisy, and so the first guns are embossed with the words.
Plymouth Iron Windmill Co., Plymouth Mish. Because we used four letters back then to abbreviate states. Patent applied for. And Daisy. And Daisy was simply the name of the gun.
It wasn't the name of the company at all. And you're listening to Joe Murphy telling the story of a super brand, a real super brand. The Daisy Air Gun history continues. after these commercial messages. When you're a pro, you need a project partner who delivers results.
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Bring the boom. X Bull. And we're back with our American stories, and our story. on Daisy, the iconic manufacturer of BB guns in America. When we last left off, Joe Murphy, the chairman of the board at the Daisy Airgun Museum in beautiful Rogers, Arkansas.
I urge anyone who's ever in that area to visit. It's one of the most beautiful parts of this country. He was telling us about how Daisy, then a product of a windmill company in Plymouth, Michigan, got its name. He was also telling us about these three companies in Plymouth, Markham Manufacturing, the aforementioned Plymouth Iron Windmill Company. and the Plymouth Air Rifle Company.
Soon these three companies would come together. Let's continue with the story. That's really the Daisy story of how it came to be and how it came to be named.
Now the salesman told a story some 40 years later that he personally would buy the BB guns for 75 cents a piece. He would take them out and run his route with his horse and buggy, and he had a small reproduction model of the steel windmill that he took with him. a sample. and when he met with the farmer he would offer him the windmill, he would present the gun for two dollars apiece, trying to make his money. but he said he was authorized to sell the gun for a dollar if the farmer would put him up Give him room and board for himself and his horse in the barn over the weekend so that he didn't have to ride the hundred miles back to his hometown.
So, um The company changed its name to Daisy Manufacturing in 1895. And Clarence Hamilton, when he gave that gun to his windmill company, because he was the one that founded the windmill company and organized the local business people, he and his son continued making Plymouth air rifle guns. And they also then continue to make 22 firearms. But shortly after he gave that gun to the Plymouth Iron Windmill Company, he said, You can have the patent of this gun and have the rights to produce and sell this gun if you remain profitable. If the company doesn't remain profitable, I'm taking my gun back.
Don't know that he could have legally done so, but that was the agreement they had.
Well, in 1899, a customer approached the Markham Company. Remember, the Markham Company was making buckets and then started making air guns. This is how these companies were all interrelated. And they challenged Markham to make an air gun, but it had to be an all-steel air gun. They'd seen the Plymouth Air Rifle air gun.
So Daisy agreed to make two guns for the Markham company.
So now they're making guns for their competitor. One of the board members on Markham's board Had been the person to take this opportunity to Daisy Manufacturing saying, You guys were making steel windmills, you're making steel guns, you can make this gun that we need made for our customer. Phil Markham, the founder of the Markham Company, due to a family situation, decides that he's going to take his small fortune and move to California in 1912. By 1916, He has sold all of his stock. the two executives at DAIISY.
So two executives working for Daisy now own the majority of stock or all of the stock in the Markham company. But during the Great Depression, these two executives decided that they could no longer personally. owned the stock in Markham. And so they sold the stock of Markham. to the Daisy Manufacturing Company.
And that's how Daisy and Markham became one company. Since Markham made their first gun in eighteen eighty six. Daisy began saying, We've been in the air gun business since 1886. That first little gun that Louis Cassuff shot into the shingle was made in 1888, but because they required Markham They started using the line since 1886. When I joined the company, I found that a bit difficult to say that we've been in the business, no, we acquired a business that's been in the business, but who was I to change history at that point?
So from 1889, when Daisy made the first patented Daisy BB Gunn as Plymouth Iron Windmill Company. To 1895, when they became Daisy Manufacturing Company, Then by 1915, we know that the company grew exponentially. They went from one two-story building to a dozen buildings. They occupied everything in Plymouth, Michigan, between the railroad line and the Switcher line. And Winters were tough in Michigan and still are today.
Originally, the buildings at the Plymouth Iron Windmill Company and then the buildings at Daisy Manufacturing weren't even connected with each other. Imagine as a manufacturer that you're doing different processes to your products. in different buildings, and then you have to go outside to take them to the next building. That had to bring some challenges during the winter, I'm sure. And of course Detroit was known, and of course Plymouth was very close to Detroit, and they were known as the Motor Town, Motown.
They were known as the headquarters of the big three automakers, Ford, GM, and Chrysler. Those were the big companies to work for.
So if you held a job with DAISY and you learned the trade and you became a specialist at some machinery or something, then your ultimate goal was to go to the big three auto workers and make more money. You could make more money building a $450 car than you could make building a $1.5 BV gun.
So By 1958, Cass Huff, who was the grandson of Lewis Casshuff, who had said the words, Clarence, it's a daisy.
Now Cass is vice president of the company. His father, Edward, is president, but Cass is a young man and he's on the track to become president. He's been a pilot in World War II. He flew P 38s. And he builds a couple airplanes, and he holds one of Michigan's first.
pilot licenses which he got as a teenager.
So he's quite the pilot. He loves flying. He flies all over the country. He has a job that allows him to and requires him to fly a lot. And DAISY has its own corporate airplane.
And so he's flying on a trip to the south. He stops to refuel in Rogers, Arkansas. There's not much in Rogers, Arkansas in 1958. Today we're a town approaching 70,000 in a metropolitan area that's much larger than that. We're bordered by Bentonville, Walmart's headquarters.
But in 1958, Roger was more of a of a separate small town with six thousand people. Mr. Cass Huff, he comes here, he lands at the grass strip at the airport, he likes the people, and he announces that I would bring my company here. but I won't land on a dirt runway anymore. You've got to pave this runway.
And the city of Rogers took him seriously and they began to court Daisy and and so he declared he would bring his company here and he did. Of the 700 employees, he offered all of them to keep their jobs if they wanted to move to Arkansas. They didn't know much about Arkansas, and people weren't as transient as we are today. They didn't leave their families and their history of their family just to go take a job somewhere.
So, 100 families took Him up on the offer of moving to Rogers and he brought him down here a few at a time on the airplane. But imagine a town of 6,000 people and just accept my math that that was probably 1,500 homes in Rogers, Arkansas. And all of a sudden, you need 100 more homes. That's a large percentage overnight growth. And so in 1958, a lot of good growth happened because of Daisy moving 100 families here overnight.
Things that make us a super brand, I think, are. multi-generational Certainly, people that have a Daisy air gun today, their parents probably had one, their grandparents have always had one. It's the type of thing that you hand down as a rite of passage within your family. A lot of people own the BB gun that belonged to their grandfather, their great-grandmother, and they value those things and they pass it down. And therefore, the brand becomes Important to them.
In my experience with DAISY in marketing and public relations, I often said that our brand isn't what we think it is, it's what others think it is. And it's a very personal thing, and that's when a brand becomes a brand, and it's not just a logo or a name that somebody can throw out. It's something that you have a heartfelt identity with that it means something to you.
So it's the most valuable thing that the company carries on its balance sheet is the goodwill of the DAISY brand name, the historic. value of it and the and the part that it's played in the heritage of our country, If you look back to the days when DAIISY was founded as a windmill company back in the 1880s and how the country has changed and how the company has progressed over the years, that's what makes it ingrained in people's minds. And a terrific job by Katrina Hine for collecting the audio and the story. And a great job as always by Monty Montgomery on the editing and the production. The story of the Daisy Air Gun.
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