Lufkin Industries

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Lufkin Industries NASDAQ: LUFK is a manufacturing company based in Lufkin, Texas and one of the largest employers in the city. Founded in 1902, it produces machinery such as oilfield pumping units, electrical equipment and trailers for trucks.

Its president and chief executive officer (as of February 2005) is D.V. Smith.

Lufkin Foundry & Machine Company, which would become Lufkin Industries, was only three years old in 1905 when the owners offered W.C. Trout a job. A true visionary, Trout brought with him his patents for sawmill equipment. By 1906, this young man from Milwaukee was the general manager.

During the 1920s, he guided the company into the pumping unit business and devised new ways to lift oil more efficiently to the surface. Throughout his career, he insisted that Lufkin pumping units, trailers, and gears were built "hell for stout" — that is stronger and better than was required.

As president, Trout led the company through the Depression and World War II years. Under his leadership, Lufkin Foundry & Machine Company built gears for Sherman tanks, marine gears for Army cargo boats and LSTs, carriages for 155mm Howitzers and three-pound cast-iron practice bombs for World War II Navy pilots.

Lufkin recently closed it's trailer division.