DUANE
Duane's take
Here's the story as the official marker tells it, out on the road near Sherman, Grayson County. Pull over if you need to — this one's worth a minute of your time. September 20, 1909.
Somebody in Sherman, Texas, looks at a glove manufacturer's idle machinery and thinks — overalls. That's where it starts. The Sherman Overall Manufacturing Company gets its charter, the machinery gets hauled over and set up in the Birge-Forbes Building on East Lamar Street, and just like that, a garment operation is born.
Now, the company changes hands in August of 1911. R. F.
Pool and his son Carl buy the whole operation, and from that moment on, the Pool name is stitched into the fabric of this place — figuratively and, eventually, literally. Over the following years, expansion pushes the company into several separate buildings scattered around downtown Sherman. They're growing, and they know it.
In 1925, the name catches up to the reality: Sherman Overall Manufacturing Company becomes Pool Manufacturing Company. Four years later, in December of 1928, they move the whole plant to this very site — sixty thousand square feet of manufacturing space, which in 1928 is no small thing. Now here's where it gets interesting.
Overalls were the beginning, but they don't stop there. Work pants. Work shirts.
Matched uniforms. And every last piece carries the Pool brand: "Swetpruf." Color-fast khaki — and the marker is clear that this was an important first in the industry. Not just a catchy name on a label.
A genuine milestone. Pool was also a leader in preshrinking fabrics before manufacture — and this is the detail that deserves a slow beat — this was before Sanforization. Before the industry had even settled on a standard, Pool was already solving the problem.
Then comes the early 1930s, and Carl Pool introduces something that would outlast every trend in the workwear business: the original army Cramerton cloth, the basic fabric that the U.S. Armed Forces are still using to this day. Carl also developed and applied modern industrial engineering to the manufacture of garments — not just making clothes, but rethinking how clothes get made.
By the time the marker was recorded in 1967, Pool Manufacturing had expanded again into sports clothes, and their market stretched all the way to the Pacific Coast and into foreign countries. Started with borrowed machinery from a glove maker, ended up outfitting a nation. Sixty thousand square feet.
One name on the label. And a khaki that wouldn't bleed.
What the marker says
Originally chartered September 20, 1909, as Sherman Overall Manufacturing Company. First machinery was secured from a glove manufacturer and placed in the Birge-Forbes Building on East Lamar Street. Company was purchased in August 1911, by R. F. Pool and son, Carl; in following years, expansion led to use of several separate buildings in downtown Sherman. Named changed to Pool Manufacturing Company in 1925. In December 1928, plant was moved to this site with 60,000 square feet of manufacturing space. Originally manufacturing overalls, they later added work pants, work shirts, and matched uniforms; all bearing the Pools "Swetpruf" brand, an important first in the industry being a color-fast khaki. Pool was leader in the practice of preshrinking fabrics before manufacture; this was before Sanforization. In the early 1930s Pool introduced the original army Cramerton cloth, basic fabric still used by U. S. Armed Forces. Carl Pool began and developed application of modern day industrial engineering to manufacture of garments. Further expansion recently has put Pool into the field of manufacturing sports clothes. Market area now extends to the Pacific Coast and some foreign countries. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967