The story
Founded by Henry Timken in 1899, in St. Louis.1
In 1898, Henry Timken obtained a patent for an improved tapered roller bearing, and in 1899 incorporated as The Timken Roller Bearing Axle Company in St. Louis.
In 1901, The Timken Company moved to Canton, Ohio, as the automobile industry began to overtake the carriage industry. Timken and his two sons chose this location because of its proximity to the American car manufacturing centers of Detroit and Cleveland and the American steel-making centers of Pittsburgh and Cleveland.
In 1917, the company began steel- and tube-making operations in Canton to vertically integrate and maintain better control over the steel used in its bearings. World War I had created an increase in demand for steel, affecting its supply and price in the market.
The Timken Company entered international markets in the early 1900s, establishing a presence initially in Great Britain, France and Germany. The performance of Timken tapered roller bearings in World War I military equipment made an impression on the European bearing market. After the war, Great Britain rose to the position of #2 in the global automotive manufacturing market, creating opportunities for the company to expand its European manufacturing presence.
The Timken Company entered the Great Depression in a strong financial position and its performance placed it in the ranks of the most solid, well-managed industrial firms of the 1930s. Expanding into non-automotive markets like agriculture, machine tooling, industrial and rail softened the impact.
During World War II, The Timken Company's production increased dramatically to keep up with wartime demand. For instance, every U.S. jeep was built using 24 Timken bearings. With 660,000 jeeps delivered to the U.S. military, the company delivered more than 15.8 million bearings for those vehicles over the course of the war. Following the war, much of the machinery shipped to Europe under the Marshall Plan was Timken-bearing equipped, helping The Timken Company establish a broader presence in a bearing market where European competitors had dominated.
By 1960, The Timken Company had operations in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, France, South Africa, Australia and Brazil. Timken Research was created in 1966 to establish technological leadership and to help standardize research and development processes across the company.
The Timken Company expanded into new global markets throughout the 1970s and 1980s, establishing a sales operation in Japan in 1974 and opening sales offices in Italy, Korea, Singapore and Venezuela in 1988. By the late 1990s the company also had a sales presence in Spain, Hong Kong, China and Singapore.
Read the full text
The Timken Company acquired its competitor, The Torrington Company, in 2003 for $840 million, doubling the size of the company and creating the world's third-largest bearing manufacturer at that time.
The company changed its corporate structure in 2014; the roller bearing-producing part of the company was separated from the steel-producing part of the company, resulting in two separate companies. The Timken Company continues to manufacture roller bearings, while Metallus, formerly known as TimkenSteel, produces steel.
The Timken Company entered the linear motion space in 2018 with the acquisition of Rollon, a maker of linear guides, telescopic rails, and linear actuators and systems used in a wide range of industrial and commercial applications. To further expand and strengthen its position in the attractive linear motion space, the company acquired iMS in 2021 and added Nadella's complementary product portfolio in 2023.
In 2023, The Timken Company expanded its Industrial Motion segment with the acquisitions of Des-Case, Rosa Sistemi and Lagersmit. The company also bolstered its engineered bearings portfolio in 2023 with the acquisitions of American Roller Bearing and Engineered Solutions Group (iMECH). Timken acquired CGI, Inc. in 2024, expanding its motion-control platform.
In March 2026, The Timken Company acquired lubrication systems company Bijur Delimon International.
From Wikipedia’s article on Timken Company, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.6