About Our Carhartt Store
The Prewitt family has a long history with Carhartt. I have a letter written in 1932 from a group of civic minded investors in Estill County, KY to Wylie Carhartt, the son of Hamilton Carhartt, the founder of Carhatt Overall Company (as it was called back then). It talks of an agreement to raise $120,000 to build a plant to locate in Estill County. After it was built my mother, Elizabeth Prewitt went to work in the plant as sewing machine operator and later became the local union president.
In 1964, after graduating from Eastern Kentucky University, I went to work in the plant (the only Carhartt plant at the time) as Carhartt’s first Industrial Engineer. My mother was still there. As the company grew, I grew with it retiring in 1999 as its Chief Operating Officer, in charge of all manufacturing and shipping as well as sales, marketing, finance and administration.
If you recall, in 1985, the Japanese companies were eating the American manufacturers’ lunch. Hardly any electronics were being made in the US and the cars were terrible. The quality of American made products left something to be desired. (As usual Americans got its act together and went on quite an economic roll.) Determined that this was not going to happen to Carhartt, what we called a Quality Assurance Process was implemented. It was found that the problems with quality were with management, not with the people who made the product. After this was straightened out, everything fell in place and Carhartt Quality is now tops in the industry.
After retirement I decided to open a Carhartt Store. This is the result. If you any comments or questions on anything Carhartt, please let us know!
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Verlon Prewitt
