Pool Manufacturing Company

Originally chartered September 20, 1909, as Sherman Overall Manufacturing Company. First machinery was secured from a glove manufacturer and placed in the Birge-Forbes Building on East Lamar Street. Company was purchased in August 1911, by R. F. Pool and son, Carl; in following years, expansion led to use of several separate buildings in downtown Sherman.

Named changed to Pool Manufacturing Company in 1925. In December 1928, plant was moved to this site with 60,000 square feet of manufacturing space. Originally manufacturing overalls, they later added work pants, work shirts, and matched uniforms; all bearing the Pools "Swetpruf" brand, an important first in the industry being a color-fast khaki.

Pool was leader in the practice of preshrinking fabrics before manufacture; this was before Sanforization. In the early 1930s Pool introduced the original army Cramerton cloth, basic fabric still used by U. S. Armed Forces. Carl Pool began and developed application of modern day industrial engineering to manufacture of garments.

Further expansion recently has put Pool into the field of manufacturing sports clothes. Market area now extends to the Pacific Coast and some foreign countries. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967