Harris Wood Celebrates 125 Years

Harris will kick off its 125 Year Anniversary Celebration at The International Surface Event in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Based in Johnson City, Tennessee, the company has been handcrafting hardwood flooring in the USA since 1898. The small lumber company was founded by William Pond Harris and focused on supplying construction materials to the building industry.

Historical Highlights

In 1902, Allen Harris, son of William Harris, drove business with marketing parquet strip flooring in New York City.
From 1914 to 1945 and the boom or bust housing markets encouraged Harris to manufacture various products such as on-base Army house flooring, persimmon golf club shafts, cannon rods, wagon wheel spokes, broom handles, 22 million tent stakes, dummy shells, and military Radio Promixity Fuse Projectors.
In the 1930s, the company expanded manufacturing unfinished tongue and groove solid strip and plank flooring capabilities.
In 1952, the company began manufacturing unfinished bondwood parquet which came to be one of the most popular flooring choices with hundreds of millions of square feet installed all over the world
In the 1980s, Harris began manufacturing engineered tongue and groove plank rlooring Installed UV-cured Urethane prefinishing line for solid and engineered flooring
In 1989, the company built a new $40 million state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Johnson City, Tennessee.
In the 1990s, Harris began manufacturing of prefinished longstrip engineered flooring in new a new facility.
In 2007, the company introduced Valinge 5G manufacturing capability, which led to the introduction of a glueless locking engineered product line.
In 2010, Harris was acquired by Q.E.P. Co., Inc.
In 2012, Expanded product offering with natural cork engineered plank
In 2015, the company invested in mechanical wire-brushing process and upgraded wood texturing capabilities Expanded Harris offerings to include a unique LVT hybrid, luxury vinyl cork
In 2016, the company expanded to wider width market with Harris Contours
In 2017, the company invested in finishing improvements, which will reduce virtually all waste during the staining process State of the art lighting upgrades to reduce energy consumption by 75%.