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This 1953 newspaper article from the Greenfield Recorder-Gazette in Greenfield, Massachusetts, describes the Threadwell Tap & Die Company as the third largest industry in Greenfield. Faced with a "dark future" before World War II (WWII), the company was revived by the many defense contracts it received during the war. The company was established in 1892 for the manufacture of butchers' tools when the Nichols brothers bought the failing plant of the Greenfield Tool Company. Despite being laughed at by hardware men who argued that Yankee craftsmen could not manufacture suitable knives and meat cutters, the brothers loaded up their wagon with only $2 in their pocket and were inundated with orders. Eventually, they branched out into the manufacture of threading tools, and in 1934 the Threadwill Tap & Die Company was formed, 14 years after the Nichols brothers retired. The company was purchased in 1946 by the Sheffield Corporation of Dayton, Ohio, the largest manufacturer of precision gauges in the United States during a program of post-war expansion. The company was bought out by Bendix, then merged with Besley, and is now located in China.

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