Our History
In 1947, the Oregon Saw Chain Manufacturing Corporation was founded with four employees and one product. Today, the Oregon brand is part of Oregon Tool, Inc, a corporation with more than 3,000 employees and thousands of products. Here are some of the people, products and events that have marked the history of the world's number-one name in saw chain, guide bars, sprockets, forestry accessories, and outdoor equipment parts - Oregon.
A Better Way of Woodcutting
Logger/inventor Joseph Buford Cox was chopping firewood one chilly autumn day in 1946 when he paused for a moment to examine curious activity in a tree stump. A timber-beetle larva, the size of a man's forefinger, was easily chewing its way through sound timber, going both across and with the wood grain at will. Joe was an experienced operator of the gas-powered saws used in those days, but the cutting chain was a problem. It required a lot of filing and maintenance time. "I spent several months looking for nature's answer to the problem," Joe recalled. "I found it in the larva of the timber beetle.
