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The Marvin Story:
Through craftsmanship, innovation and dedication to servicing customers, Marvin
Windows and Doors has become the largest made-to-order wood window and door manufacturer
in the world. Click here to view Marvin Windows. Click here to visit Marvin's corporate web site.
The Marvin story begins in 1904, when George Marvin came to Warroad, a small
town in northern Minnesota about six miles (10 km) from the Canadian border.
He came to Warroad to run a grain elevator and lumber yard for a Canadian firm,
but when the firm relocated, George chose to stay behind. He spent the next seventy
years building a business that would become a cornerstone of the Warroad community.
George founded the Marvin Timber and Cedar Company in 1912, and months later
renamed it the Marvin Lumber and Cedar Company. In 1939 George's son Wm. S. "Bill",
a recent graduate of the University of Minnesota, came to work for his father
thus becoming the Company's eighth employee. Harry York, the lumberyard manager,
prompted the expansion of the company when he requested a machine that could keep
him busy during the quiet winter months building window and door frames and then
barn sash and screens. Before the window business could develop further, however, World War II broke
out. To help with the war effort, the company accepted defense subcontracts,
and its workforce increased to 40 employees. After the war, Wm. S. "Bill" Marvin
knew that without jobs, many of Warroad's young workers would be forced to move
elsewhere. He recognized that making windows meant creating jobs, and jobs would
give Warroad's residents a reason to remain in the area. Because of the craftsmanship,
work ethic, and dedication of Warroad's unique men and women, Marvin has grown
steadily to become a major producer in the industry.
George Marvin passed away in 1976, but today, second, third, and fourth generation
Marvins still remain actively involved in the business. Today, Warroad, a community
of nearly 2,000 people, is home to one of the industry's foremost producers of
quality custom made window and door products with a workforce close to 3,000.
The community, the company, and, above all, the customer benefit from this unique
relationship.
In all those years of stubbornly refusing to leave Warroad, Marvin Windows managed
to innovate many industry firsts:
First in industry to deliver product via company-owned fleet of trucks. |
