by MARK RAY

Flexsteel Industries traces its history to 1893, when the Rolph & Ball Furniture Company opened its doors in Minneapolis. In 1901, four tradesmen—including a German immigrant who had arrived in the United States with just 50 cents in his pocket—bought the business, which eventually became Northome Industries.

But 1927 might be a more important date. That’s when the company added flexible steel springs to its products.

Swiss inventor E. Werner Schlaprittzi modeled the springs after those he’d seen in bell tower clocks. “He noticed there was one piece in those clocks that never wore out: the spring,” says David Crimmins, vice president of sales and product management for Flexsteel. “It had to do with how the steel was poured, the chemistry of the steel and the ultimate tensile strength.”

Schlaprittzi first sold his springs for use in European railroad car seats, where durability was as important as comfort. After emigrating to the United States, he began making springs for residential furniture manufacturers. One of those manufacturers was Northome Industries.

Besides being durable, Schlaprittzi’s springs offered a balance of softness and support. In fact, the patented Blue Steel Spring—the metal has a natural blue so important that Northome renamed itself Flexsteel Industries in 1958, a nod to the springs’ strength and flexibility.