M. Linkman & Co.

M. Linkman & Co. is the company that made pipes in Chicago from 1898 to the early 1950s and brought to market one of the most talked-about inventions of American mass production: the pipe broken in at the factory before sale. The company's own name is little remembered today; by contrast, the Dr. Grabow brand it launched in the 1930s has survived long after the founding firm passed into history.

A Pipe Factory in Chicago

Records indicate the company was founded by Louis B. Linkman, who worked for a Midwestern pipe wholesaler, together with August Fisher, with a few hundred dollars they had saved; it began as a small workshop employing only a handful of people. When Anton Burger, who came from the same trade, joined as a partner, the staff grew; the business incorporated in 1907 and Linkman took the role of president. Within fifteen years, production had outgrown workshop scale: a three-story reinforced-concrete factory building was put up in 1922. The lathes worked both briar and meerschaum.

What the "M" in the company name stood for is not certain. The common account holds that the letter refers to Linkman's mother, Mary Linkman; no such explanation appears in the firm's own promotional materials. One of the early-period brands carried the name Alco.