| | There's no substitute for experience - ours, or yours. Thus reads a Hamilton advertising slogan expressing how experience benefits the user. Today's customers benefit in very real ways from the improvements in designs, materials and manufacturing methods developed during Hamilton's 90+ years in business.
Founder John A. Weigel started Hamilton Caster as a moonlighting venture from his garage in 1907, the same year Oklahoma joined the Union as the 46th state and Theodore Roosevelt was serving as President. The company struggled, but earned a solid reputation as its "shoe rack casters" proved popular in the marketplace. In 1928 Hamilton entered the floor truck market when it acquired H. Zering Mfg. Co., in Cincinnati. But by the late 1930's the company was reeling from the Great Depression and Mr. Weigel's health was failing.
Saving the enterprise which the founder had risked so much to establish required another great risk during troubled economic times. That's when son-in-law Ralph Lippert stepped in and purchased the company in 1939. His wife, Esther, served as president until 1943, when Ralph became the company's third president, a position he held until 1976.
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