D.S. Brown Celebrates 135 Years as Leader in Bridge, Airport, and Highway Components

D.S. Brown reached a milestone in 2025 by celebrating 135 years in business. The North Baltimore, Ohio company is a leading worldwide designer, supplier, and manufacturer of engineered products for the bridge, airport and highway industries.

“It’s about great people and it’s about great products,” said D.S. Brown’s Vice President and General Manager R. Scott Jenkins. “We design and engineer structural movement, protection, and repair solutions for bridges, highways and airfields. We’re the most comprehensive supplier in the industry providing a full range of bridge expansion joints, structural bearings, sealing and protection systems.”

Humble Beginnings

D.S. Brown’s current product line is a long way from where the business began in 1890. The company was first incorporated in New York, relocated to Richmond, Indiana and then moved to its current location in North Baltimore in 1916. The original brick structure (a matchstick factory) still exists, and indeed the current D.S. Brown facility is built around the original structure.

In 1916, D.S. Brown’s 50 employees focused on leather products, including horse collars, pads, and saddlery to feed the needs of the farming economy. In 1932, D.S. Brown purchased the Judd and Leland Manufacturing Company and began to supply leather universal joint boots for the Chrysler Corporation. Changes in the automotive industry in the 1940s and 1950s moved the company from leather into rubber manufacturing, which is one of D.S. Brown’s core competencies today.

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In the 1970s and 1980s, D.S. Brown became a leading supplier of bridge and highway structural bearings and expansion joint systems. The company has also become involved in providing sealing and patching products for airport runway construction and maintenance.

Worldwide Reach

D.S. Brown was acquired by Gibraltar in 2011 and in 2012, D.S. Brown purchased Seismic Energy Products in Athens, Texas, which also produces bridge bearings. D.S. Brown has done business in all 50 states and all over the world. The North Baltimore facility employs 200 people today, with 40 more at its Texas facility.

Jenkins said he hopes the company will “continue to be a major force in the highway and bridge market for years to come, but also to explore how we can continue to innovate and recreate ourselves to remain relevant both in our core markets and new markets in the future. D.S. Brown has a proud history of adapting to new markets.

“Virtually everything that we buy gets hauled by a truck to its final destination,” driving over interstate highways, Jenkins said. “D.S. Brown plays a really critical role in constructing bridges and highways … and we rely on those bridges and highways.”