Sentinel photo by MATT STRICKER
Overhead Door supervisors Terry Beers, left, and Don Specht look over a timeline of the company’s history at the 100-year anniversary celebration held for employees Friday in Lewistown.

LEWISTOWN — Among the 100th birthdays being celebrated this week is one you may not realize, unless you’re one of the folks who have been making world-class doors in Mifflin County.

On Friday, Overhead Door, located in the Mifflin County Industrial Park, held a celebration to mark a century in business.

What started as a franchise operation in 1921 has grown into Overhead Door’s Rolling Steel Division, which services clients in the U.S. and abroad.

“We manufacture all roll-up commercial doors used in manufacturing, ball parks, football stadiums, malls, military bases and storefronts all around the world,” Vice President Brad Knable said. “We also manufacture high speed fabric and metal doors, we are the largest commercial door manufacturing in the hemisphere, we have many distributors in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and worldwide, and have over a billion dollars in sales.”

Among the more notable companies that are served by doors from Lewistown are Walmart, Amazon.com and Fedex; car manufacturers Tesla and Mercedes-Benz; sports facilities that are home to the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Pirates — and smaller venues like Hershey’s Giant Center. You’ll even find their product on military installations such as Fort Bragg, and NASA aerospace facilities.

“We target residential and commercial and have entered into the high speed market,” Knable explained. “We are No. 1 in the industry with the best lead times, best delivered quality and cost, best in class with superior customer service and an awesome team.”

Overhead Door in Lewistown started as a sectional production plant that licensed the Overhead Door brand. The local operation was purchased by Overhead Door in 1969, and a new plant was built at its present site.

In 1972 Lewistown became the company’s rolling steel plant, and 10 years later all manufacturing functions were brought to Mifflin County. The current rolling steel building was purchased in 1986.

Since then, two more rolling steel plants have consolidated here, the international sales division moved here and in-house powder coating began.Overhead Door opened Parts.com in its sectional building in 2014 and began high speed door production two years later.

Overhead Door has built the largest door (2,100 square feet; 27,000 pounds), widest door (66 feet) and the tallest at 58 feet.

Knable attributes the company’s success and longevity to its distribution base, continuous improvement, new products and perhaps most important, “our people. The future is very bright for our company as we continue to grow and take the market share.”