| Founded half a century ago in Pulaski,
Virginia, and taking the name of the town as
its own, Pulaski Furniture was originally
established as a maker of bedroom and dining
room furniture. From that point on, Pulaski
rapidly carved out a niche for itself by
becoming a leader in the production of curio
cabinets, designed for the express purpose
of displaying collectibles. Pulaski
continued to expand and diversify, adding
accent pieces, occasional tables and hand
painted armoires. In 1985 the Ridgeway
Clock Company was acquired, adding
grandfather, wall and mantel clocks to our
line. To further extend the product line,
Dawson Furniture of Webb City, Missouri, a
manufacturer of both promotional and
unfinished furniture was purchased.
Pulaski Veneer and Furniture Corporation
were incorporated on October 28, 1955, when
a group of individuals decided to start a
furniture manufacturing operation in a
closed RCA Cabinet Shop. RCA Victor had
closed the plant they were operating in
Pulaski in 1948 due to cost considerations
and business conditions. The area economy
was depressed with a large number of people
out of work, especially those that had
worked at the closed plant.
The plant was restarted in the heart of
downtown Pulaski and began making a few
inexpensive bedroom suites incorporated
under the name of Pulaski Veneer and
Furniture Corporation. Business was not a
total success in this very cyclic industry
with some partial paychecks being from in
kind goods such as hams and flour from the
Richardson farms, also located in the
county.
Generally business was good with demand
for home furnishings strong. Designs were
simple, designed for price and ease of
manufacture as the factory personnel's skill
level developed.
The Corporation acquired its first
permanent showroom space in Chicago at the
American Furniture Market in October of
1957. In 1960, the Corporation acquired
Morris Novelty Corporation in Martinsville,
Virginia producers of small occasional
tables and other novelty furniture items,
with many of the family members becoming
part of the Pulaski group in both sales and
manufacturing.
In 1962, the company name was changed from
Pulaski Veneer and Furniture Corporation to
Pulaski Furniture Corporation.
Thanks mostly to the new "Pulaski Look"(
a highly stylized line that was a bit more
difficult to manufacture but frequently
looked more expensive than it actually was)
business in bedroom and dining room was
brisk and there was real need for more
production capability. In 1973, Pulaski
built a new case goods plant on the grounds
of the new veneer mill, twice the size of
its original Pulaski case goods facility.
The Dublin, Virginia facility was the most
modern of it's time and huge in proportions
of the day at 550,000 square feet.
1975 saw the introduction of the
furniture industry's largest selling
collection to date, Keepsakes. This
collection, designed by Leonard Eisen, began
as a 45 piece "Turn of the Century"
Victorian Bedroom, Dining Room, and Accent
Furniture Collection. This collection
eventually grew to 90 pieces, and in
December of 1980 we cut our 1 millionth
piece of Keepsakes.
In 1981, Pulaski bought its neighbor Coleman
Furniture at auction. Coleman was a very
large bedroom manufacturer having over
1,000,000 square feet of production and
warehouse space. The face of Pulaski was
changing from older manufacturer, to modern,
fully capable facilities.
In 1985, Pulaski Furniture Corporation
acquired Gravely Furniture Company, which
currently operates as Ridgeway Clock
Company, a world renowned clock
manufacturer. The Ridgeway plant did well
for Pulaski and the clock business was a
good fit with the curio business as accent
pieces for homes across America.
In 1988, Pulaski also purchased
Craftique, a high end 18th century
reproduction manufacturer in solid mahogany.
The company also started an upholstery plant
in Christiansburg, Virginia in 1989 and
launched the Accentrics line.
During the 1990's Pulaski began to establish
its Asian connections, bringing in both
ready to finish and completely assembled
goods from overseas. This business has
matured nicely with a separate division in
charge of coordinating the import efforts
with on site Pulaski quality personnel
verifying the goods prior to shipment to the
U.S.
In 1994, the Corporation under pressure
to provide the entire spectrum of display
furniture, built a highly mechanized curio
manufacturing facility capable of
maintaining it's presence in the low end
market, which gave the company a complete
product line across the wide economic
spectrum. The small plant (75,000 square
feet) aptly named "The Miniplant " was a
complete manufacturing facility with rough
milling capacity complete through finishing
and packaging, generally accomplished in 3.5
to 5 days from cut lumber to boxing.
Schedules can be completely changed 5 days
from required ship date and the product has
achieved full acceptance across the
marketplace. The plant was put together with
the best available technologies from around
the world and to this day is one of the most
efficient curio producing facilities in the
world.
In 1997, the Corporation decided to
restructure its product lines and refocus on
it's core competencies. This necessitated
selling the Craftique division and closing
the upholstery division while shifting
unique products to the most efficient plants
for manufacturing. All this was accomplished
in July of 1997 and this year Pulaski is a
better, much more competitive furniture
producer. With product lines more clearly
defined by plant of manufacture, each
facility is being better equipped to compete
in its specific niche within the overall
corporate marketing/manufacturing scheme.
The Pulaski success is directly
attributable to defining our niche in
various core competencies and servicing it
well with proper products, prices, and
quality to make our products highly
desirable in a specific marketplace.
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