LEE-ROWAN IS SOLD TO FIRM IN ILLINOIS

JACKSON -- Lee-Rowan, the St. Louis-based manufacturer and distributor of home organizational products, announced Wednesday to its second-shift employees in the Jackson plant that the business had been sold to a Freeport, Ill., company.

The company was reportedly sold to the Newell Company Corp., based in Freeport, Ill., which also manufactures home organizational products.

Further details about the buyer, price, or the effect of the sale on the business were not disclosed Tuesday to anyone outside the company.

Jackson City Administrator Carl Talley said Wednesday that he and other city administrators were aware of the sale.

"I just know that they told some of the employees at 5 p.m. today that the business had been sold," Talley said We dnesday night "(The city) was aware that they had been in negotiations for a couple of weeks, but nothing was announced before today."

Lee-Rowan was founded in 1939 by Edgar D. Lee and John V. Rowan in St. Louis. The company's first products were metal trouser creasers that were sold to Sears, Roebuck and Co. and JCPenney, which have been Lee-Rowan customers for 50 years.

During World War II, the firm, unable to obtain steel for the trouser creasers, started manufacturing arming wires for bombs. After the war, the firm experimented with new products that eventually led to Storage Systems by Lee-Rowan.

Today the firm offers not only the hangers, but a complete line of ventilated storage products and an assortment of traditional closet accessories.

The firm manufactures and distributes home organizational products in the U.S., Canada, Japan, United Kingdom, Australia and Caribbean Basin.

Many of the products are manufactured in Jackson, where more than a half-million square feet of space is devoted to the manufacture of products.

When Lee-Rowan opted to expand its St. Louis operation in 1964, company officials selected a site at Jackson, constructed a 42,500-square-foot building and put about 25 people to work. Since then, the plant has undergone eight additions and employs more than 700 people.