Simmons Co. - Bedding Manufacturer - Stock Certificate

General Stock printed by American Bank Note Company. Portrait of Mr Zalmon G. Simmons, founder of the company. Scarce!!! Please specify color.

Zalmon Gilbert Simmons Sr. (September 10, 1828 – February 10, 1910) was a businessman, manufacturer, Wisconsin legislator, and mayor of Kenosha, Wisconsin. One of his general store customers paid for merchandise with a patent for a woven wire bedspring. At that time, mattresses were made of cotton or horsehair. Simmons took the ideas from the patent and found a way to make the cost of manufacturing affordable. In 1870, Simmons founded what would become the Simmons Bedding Company, but the market had not yet developed for spring beds. Instead, Simmons manufactured brass beds that were sold domestically and internationally.

The Northwestern Wire Mattress Company was incorporated in 1884 and in 1889 the name was changed to Simmons Manufacturing Company. In 1925, Simmons produced the Beautyrest mattress, for which the company is best known. It was sold at three to four times the cost of wire mattresses at the time for $39.50 (equivalent to $610 in 2021) and four years later had sold more than $9 million (equivalent to $142,029,070 in 2021) of the mattresses. The company introduced the pull-out bed, Hide-a-Bed, in 1940. By 1941, the company made springs, mattresses, steel beds and furniture and employed about 2,500 men. During World War II, it produced 2,700 different products needed to support the war effort. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zalmon_G._Simmons