The W. C. Bradley Company, headquartered in Columbus, comprises several manufacturing, sales, and real estate enterprises. The company’s products include such home and leisure consumer products as barbecue grills, outdoor lamps, and fishing tackle, and its real estate division is a major seller, developer, and redeveloper of commercial and residential properties in Columbus. In 2005 Georgia Trend reported that the W. C. Bradley Company was Georgia’s nineteenth-largest privately held company, with approximately $650 million in revenue and 2,500 employees.

W. C. Bradley Company
W. C. Bradley Company

Image from W.C. Bradley Co.

The W. C. Bradley Company’s history parallels the economic history of Georgia over the twentieth century. The company and its owners, the Bradley and Turner families, have also been central to the prosperity of Columbus, as it has developed from a commercial center for agricultural products to a center for textiles and industry to the current diversified economy that includes education, technology, and cultural resources.

The modern Bradley Company began as a cotton-factoring business, Bussey-Goldsmith and Company, which W. C. Bradley and his brother-in-law Samuel A. Carter bought in the late 1880s. They changed the firm’s name to Carter and Bradley and expanded the firm’s business to include the manufacturing of fertilizer and the retailing of groceries. In 1895 Carter sold his portion of the company to Bradley, who changed its name to the W. C. Bradley Company. Over the next thirty years, Bradley further diversified his holdings by investing in banks, textile mills, steamboats, farms, Coca-Cola, and the Columbus Iron Works. Each of these ventures served to strengthen the portfolio of the company and opened doors that led to the organization’s current production lines and corporate culture.

Bradley Warehouse No. 2
Bradley Warehouse No. 2

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

In 1917 D. Abbott Turner married Bradley’s only daughter, Elizabeth. Turner, becoming Bradley’s trusted confidant and heir, assumed a leadership position within the Bradley Company. Bradley selected Turner’s son, William (Bill), to be the future leader of the company when Bill was just eight years old. Bill Turner assumed this role in the early 1950s, after graduating from the Georgia Institute of Technology and serving in the navy. He was assisted by Lovick Corn, the husband of his sister Elizabeth (or Betty). In 1987 Turner and Corn stepped down, passing active leadership to Stephen Butler, their nephew, and Brad Turner, Bill’s son. These two, along with other family members, continue to lead the business while remaining active in the community.

In the late 1940s one of the organization’s major products, the potbellied stove, was becoming obsolete. Company leaders brainstormed for an alternative product, hoping to continue production at the Columbus Iron Works facility, and developed the idea of a charcoal grill, which they began to manufacture in 1949. That product formed the root of the new Char-Broil division, and the Bradley Company has subsequently manufactured gas grills, smokers, and other products for outdoor cooking. The company is vertically integrated, in that they manufacture grills and replacement parts and market many of these products through Web sites, catalogs, and wholesale distribution to retailers.

Columbus Iron Works
Columbus Iron Works

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

In 2004 Char-Broil announced that it would begin outsourcing the production of grills to a factory in the south of China by the end of 2006, a move that required the elimination of 500 full-time and up to 1,000 seasonal jobs.

The Bradley Company’s other two manufacturing divisions, Lamplight and Zebco, were acquired by the company in 1998 and 2001 respectively. Lamplight, based in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, produces lamps and oils that are sold as the brands Lamplight and Tiki. Zebco, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is a leading designer and marketer of fishing tackle, including the brand names Rhino, Quantum, Lew’s, and Martin. Both of these divisions conduct much of their manufacturing overseas, with the merchandising, management, order processing, and fulfillment taking place domestically.

In 2001 the company formed W. C. Bradley Real Estate. Previously the company had owned land and had been involved in commercial and residential development, but its interest was limited to the initial sale of developed properties. The new division actively involved itself in the development of malls and subdivisions and the adaptive reuse of historic properties. In 2003 the division built (at a cost of about $22 million) the Synovus Centre, an office building and parking deck complex adjacent to the corporate campus for Total System Services Incorporated, a division of Synovus, along the Chattahoochee River in Columbus. The division was also involved in the redevelopment of Uptown Columbus and with the building of lofts and apartments for Columbus State University students. The redevelopment of the Pillowtex factories on the site of the historic Eagle and Phenix Mill complex began in 2003.

The Bradley Company, along with its related entity, the Bradley-Turner Foundation, is a major benefactor of educational, cultural, and social service efforts in the Columbus area. The company has been recognized by its employees and by the Georgia Department of Labor as a good place to work because of its emphasis on community support and servant leadership.

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Columbus Iron Works

Columbus Iron Works

W. C. Bradley, of the W. C. Bradley Company, invested in the Columbus Iron Works early in the twentieth century. During the 1940s, the Bradley Company initiated the production of charcoal grills at the iron works to replace the obsolete potbellied stoves formerly produced at the facility.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Historic American Engineering Record, #HAER GA, 108-COLM, 22-25.

W. C. Bradley Company

W. C. Bradley Company

The W. C. Bradley Company, based in Columbus, was the state's nineteenth-largest private company in 2005, according to Georgia Trend magazine. The company comprises manufacturing, sales, and real estate divisions.

Image from W.C. Bradley Co.

Bradley Warehouse No. 2

Bradley Warehouse No. 2

A warehouse of the W. C. Bradley Company was located on Front Avenue in Columbus, circa 1960. The company began as a cotton-factoring business in the nineteenth century and expanded into numerous other areas, including fertilizer manufacturing, banks, and iron, during the twentieth century.

Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Historic American Engineering Record, #HAER GA,108-COLM,23-9.