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History of Timken Company

Timken

In 1890s, Henry Timken, a carriage maker in St. Louis, Missouri, recognized that heavy freight wagons had a difficult time making sharp turns. To solve the problem, he applied a tapered roller bearing design that could handle both radial (weight) and thrust (cornering force) loads. The results were encouraging and provided several customer benefits. First, the application ran more smoothly, reducing repair and replacement costs. In some cases, the bearings improved wagon performance so much that fewer mules were required to pull them. Finally, better cornering meant less chance of losing a load of goods. Always focused on customer benefits, Henry quickly realized that the tapered roller bearing could improve product performance in many other applications as well. Henry and his sons, H.H. and William, founded The Timken Roller Bearing and Axle Company in 1899, building the foundation for a global enterprise that today helps keep the world in motion.

Throughout the years, Timken has contributed to customer success through a clear vision, industrial focus, advanced processes and global growth. Following are key examples of how Timken has moved global industries forward since 1899.

During World War II, Timken production increased dramatically to keep up with wartime demand. For instance, every U.S. jeep was built using 24 Timken® bearings. With 660,000 jeeps delivered to the U.S. military, Timken delivered more than 15.8 million bearings for those vehicles over the course of the war. Following the war, much of the machinery shipped to Europe under the Marshall Plan was Timken-bearing equipped, helping Timken establish a broader presence in a bearing market where European competitors had dominated.

By 1960, Timken had operations in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, France, South Africa, Australia and Brazil. Timken Research was created in 1966 to establish technological leadership and to help standardize research and development processes across the company.

Timken expanded into new global markets throughout the 1970s and 1980s, establishing a sales operation in Japan in 1974 and opening sales offices in Italy, Korea, Singapore and Venezuela in 1988. By the late 1990s Timken also had a sales presence in Spain, Hong Kong, China and Singapore.

Timken acquired its competitor, The Torrington Company, in 2003 for $840 million, doubling the size of the company and creating the world’s third-largest bearing manufacturer at that time.

The company changed its corporate structure in 2014; the roller bearing-producing part of the company was separated from the steel-producing part of the company, resulting in two separate companies. Timken is currently focused on expanding its tapered roller bearings and growing its offering of industrial bearings and mechanical power transmission products and services.