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PATTERSON DEVELOPS DENISON GARMENT PLANT INTO MODERN AND EFFICIENT ORGANIZATION

The Denison Herald
July 7, 1938

"I'm proud of the personnel." We don't hire just anyone; they're all high grade employes," A.W. Patterson, president of the Patterson Manufacturing Company, states, and he is just as proud, too, of his products and his plant.

The Patterson Manufacturing Company, located at 216 North Houston avenue, is a two story brick building, manufactures "Patco" quality overalls and dungarees for men and boys and Farmerette suits for misses and women and children's sports wear, and a competitive grade branded "Promoter".

Hardwood floors help keep the 40,000 square feet of floor space in the plant as clean as a home; fans circulate the air in the stitching room and second floor toward the centered skylights. A water cooler sprinkles the roof, reducing the interior temperature as much as twenty degrees. They have an electrically refrigerated sanitary water fountain and up-to-date hospital room for emergency cases with a practical nurse on duty at all times.

The employes operate their own lunch and soft drink stand on the workroom floor with all the profits going to the employes' fund.

The "Patco News", published monthly, with a changing staff, company sponsored dances, entertainments, picnics and parties, medical examination of the employes and a girls' softball team are other company features.

COMES TO DENISON
It wasn't that way on May 1, 1933, when Mr. Patterson, then vice-president and general manager of Smith, McCord and Townsend, wholesale dry goods house in Kansas City, came here and purchased the closed Cowden Manufacturing Company.

He had to re-equip the plant and clean it up. He hired local, all white help. Today all department heads and employes are local citizens.

Methods of manufacture were modernized. Today no woman employe lifts more than one pair of overalls at a time. More efficient machinery was installed.

Mrs. Patterson is vice-president of the company and Hugh I. Thompson is secretary. Mr. Patterson is also treasurer. The plant has employed as many as 450 persons when a night shift was operated, but regularly about 250 are working. The annual payroll amounts to about $100,000.

SERVES WIDE AREA
Much of the products manufactured are for wholesale trade channels and bear the brands of the wholesalers. The company's market is from the Central states west to the Pacific coast.

Fiver years ago no Sanforized shrunk overalls were manufactured; now ninety per cent made are Sanforized shrunk. It requires special machines to stitch and for most operations, and there are 55 operations from the time the high quality Texas denim leaves the cutting room, where 144 garments are cut at one time, until they reach the shipping room.

The Farmerettes and sports suits, of different colors and fabrics, are stitched in another department apart from the overalls, and located on the first floor. Manufacture of these garments was started this year.

In addition to new patterns for women, mens overall styles change too. Mr. Patterson explains with maybe the addition of one special pocket requiring new patterns and the change of some equipment.

Buttons are bought by the case, enough to trim 100 dozen pair of overalls.

Employes work five days, 40 hours a week, and are given steady employment. There have been business curtailments since Mr. Patterson took over the plant three years ago after President Roosevelt assumed the office the first time, but there has been no shutdowns.