A Short History of Max Gerber
Max
Gerber, Inc. was founded in 1919 by Max Gerber. Max was born in
Bialystok, Poland in 1897 and emigrated to Chicago at age 5. At
the age of 22 he started his own plumbing store outlet. In 1932,
Max Gerber took over Kokomo Pottery Company which was bankrupt.
In just five years Max was far enough along to make his first
expansion through the purchase of the Globe Valve Company of Cleveland,
which he moved to Delphi, Indiana, now the site of Gerber's brass
plant, where its faucets and fixtures are manufactured.
In 1942 Max acquired Woodbridge Pottery in New Jersey,
where Gerber today makes pottery for the eastern market. In 1946
he established Gerber Industries Incorporated at Delphi, where
the company's complete line of shower cabinets is made. His final
expansion was the purchase of AAA Pottery at Gadsden, Alabama,
which is also still operating today. Max died in 1953, at the
age of 56. Max Gerber, Inc. was his first venture into the plumbing
business and still operates on the same corner as the same plumbing
outlet store nearly 50 years after his death.
