Land anchor maker marks centennial celebration
Boone County’s largest manufacturing plant, a land-anchor factory founded by A.B. Chance and now owned by Hubbel Power Systems, is commemorating its 100th anniversary this year.
The first volume of Centralia Wizard, a book telling the story of the company from its 1907 inception through 1936, was published this summer to coincide with the centennial. Author Don Darst, a former plant executive, is now working on the second volume, which follows the A.B. Chance Co. from 1936 through 1975, when it was sold.
“The Chance Company had a positive impact on the Centralia community as well as the entire central Missouri area,” Darst said. “The international impact was also much greater than the physical size of the company. Chance products touch everyone each day.”
A. B. Chance and his father owned and operated Centralia’s first telephone exchange before Chance came out with a series of inventions that led to the company becoming the world’s largest manufacturer of earth anchors and stabilization devices.
Chance developed products that solved guying problems on the ground as well as hardware and electrical items to be used on the pole and line.
Albert B. “Buff” Chance, great-grandson of the founder, said that over the years the company also strove to provide any electrical components that a utility customer might need.
“Through their catalogue the company developed a ‘one-stop’ approach to offer a full line of any product that was necessary to build and maintain a power line,” Buff Chance said.
Jack Chance, A.B. Chance’s grandson and Buff Chance’s father—who worked for the Chance Company for more than 40 years—said that no other company in the manufacturing of electrical products for utility companies had such a complete product line.
A.B. Chance’s first commercially successful product was the Sky-Rocket Lightning Arrester, which he patented in 1908.
The Chance Company quickly developed an international presence with the Never-Creep Anchor and Thimbleye Anchor Rod.
But Darst points out that Chance was not just an inventor; he also proved to be an excellent salesman and businessman, and he traveled across the country to demonstrate Chance products to utility companies.
“He was constantly making transitions and adjusting to change,” Darst said. “This was very unusual—not only to be an inventor but also to have the ability to operate a business.”
The Chance Company grew quickly over the years as it began to acquire other companies whose products it chose to manufacture and sell. After the 1950s, when many of the town’s roads improved, much of the manufacturing began to take place in Centralia. By the 1970s the number of employees had grown to about 1,400.
The company was sold to Emerson Electric of St. Louis in the mid 1970s. Approximately five years prior to the company being sold a second time, a leverage buyout occurred. The Chance Company was sold to Hubbel Power Systems, Inc. in 1994, and approximately 800 workers are currently employed at the Centralia headquarters.