Garland Manufacturing Company was founded in 1866 and was incorporated in 1873. The company is now owned and managed by the sixth generation of the Garland family. Garland Maunufacturing's original products were primarily machine parts for textile mills, including loom pickers made of water buffalo rawhide. These pickers moved the loom's shuttle rapidly from one end of the loom to the other -- water buffalo hide was used for its toughness and extreme durability. In 1900 the company started making rawhide mallets and rawhide hammers, specialty striking tools used primarily for metal working, tool & die making, leathercraft and jewelry making. These tools are still being made today.

In the early 1950's, Garland imported from Europe, the first five hundred pounds of Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMW) resin ever brought into North America. Harry Garland, president of the company at that time, originally brought the powder home to try out in his wife's oven to see what would happen at different temperatures. After Garland initially attempted injection molding UHMW, the company eventually devised a unique extrusion system for the production of UHMW board, bar, rod, tube and custom profile extrusions. At that time, in the mid-1950's, Garland was the only company in the world that was able to extrude UHMW.

In April of 1984, the company moved to a new 53,000 square foot manufacturing facility in the Saco Industrial Park. Prior to that, the company had been located in the same building for 97 years. Today, the Plastics Division and the Hand Tools Division occupy over 100,000 square feet of manufacturing and warehousing space and the company continues to grow..Garland Manufacturing sells GARDUR brand UHMW Polyethylene and the Garland Rawhide line of specialty striking tools worldwide.