America’s Last Washboard Factory Isn’t Ready to Throw in the Towel

“The market is small, but if we can make enough to keep in business, we really want to keep the business going,” said

Larry Gerstner,

one of the company’s four co-owners.

Sales jumped 57% in 2020 over the prior year, the company said, goosed by pandemic fears of societal collapse and limited laundry service. “There were groups of people that were panicking,” said Mr. Gerstner. His other business ventures include a nearby zip line attraction and a local hotel.

Columbus Washboard sold more than a million boards a year in its 1940s heyday. That was when wood-and-corrugated-steel boards were used for scrubbing clothing and linens by hand in a washtub of soap and water. Washing machines and postwar prosperity set off an inexorable decline.

Today, about 40% of company sales go to bluegrass and folk musicians who use the boards as percussion instruments. The Washboard Player Appreciation Society has its own Facebook page.

The town stages an annual washboard festival in June, and

Rebecca Lindsey

attends most years. Ms. Lindsey, who has played the washboard since 1988, has a custom model she named

Cosmo.

It weighs 47½ pounds and has 20 sound effects, including a four-bar xylophone, a duck call and a train whistle. When the thimbles on her fingers wear holes in Cosmo’s steel scrub board, she orders a replacement from Columbus Washboard.

“They’re the only washboard company left in America, but I would be loyal to them anyway,” she said.

Glenda Lehman Ervin, director of marketing for Lehman’s, a hardware store in Kidron, Ohio, sells Columbus washboards, along with oil lamps, wood-burning stoves and Amish-made rocking chairs. A bump in washboard sales tracks the blossoming popularity of growing and canning food, she said.

Many people are also looking for budget hacks. “Get yourself a washboard, like granny had,” said one post on a Reddit thread this month about money-saving laundry tricks. Another, presumably satirical, post, said, “A salad spinner works really well for very small loads.”

A washboard contrarian gave the modernist view. “Washing clothes with a washboard is time consuming and a pain,” the post said.

Yet there also is the prospect of washboard abs. “It’s a workout,” according to a comment in a Reddit thread last year.

Most of Columbus’s sales come via

Amazon.com,

including by customers who want to hang the washboards on a wall in the laundry room.

Carlene Blair,

of International Falls, Minn., said she has six washboards by her washer and dryer, including a Columbus model. Ms. Blair said she paid $9.99 for it at a Twin Cities-area Goodwill last spring. “I’ve never used one to wash clothes,” she said. “I like that antique feeling.”

Ms. Blair scoops up used washboards at garage sales and antique stores, She usually adds a coat of paint and a stenciled design to sell on

Facebook

or a local consignment shop to buyers who also like to see them hanging.

Columbus Washboard has a retail store in downtown Logan. On display are custom washboards with names of bands printed on them. One board was made for the Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band. Another read:

Dolly Parton’s

Smoky Mountain Adventures Dinner & Show.

Jacqui Barnett,

one of the company’s co-owners, said she delivered one of the boards to Ms. Parton and joined the legendary singer onstage at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., during a performance of the song “9 to 5.”

Columbus Washboard nearly went under in 1999. Mr. Gerstner and friends saw a story about its imminent closure in the Columbus Dispatch newspaper and decided to save it.

The partners first moved the company’s century-old presses and crimpers to a brick factory in Logan. A weathered 12-by-24-foot washboard replica on the side of the building is something of a local landmark.

Mr. Gerstner and Ms. Barnett’s late husband,

Bevan Barnett,

made improvements to materials and production. The two men, both engineers, had met in the 1970s while building an airstrip on the tiny island kingdom of Tonga when Mr. Gerstner was in the Peace Corps and the Barnetts were on assignment for a government aid program out of their native New Zealand.

At Columbus Washboard, the two engineers tried stronger steel to eliminate wooden slats on the back of the boards, saving production steps. They replaced steel strips with rolls of steel, reducing waste. The washboards also switched from pine to Ohio poplar, a harder wood that required stronger nails.

Two employees,

Lisa Jarrell

and

Linda Blackburn,

assemble the washboards with hammers and pneumatic nail guns. On a recent shift, Ms. Jarrell, an employee for 16 years, pulled at the legs of a pail-size “DUBL HANDI” washboard to test its sturdiness.

Linda Blackburn and Lisa Jarrell assembling washboards at the Columbus Washboard Co. this month.

Since 1999, the company has shipped washboards to every continent save Antarctica. A world map hangs on a wall, and colored push pins mark sales, from one end to the other—Uruguay, Finland, Madagascar, Japan, Australia.

The company donated about 5,000 washboards to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with soap, wash tubs, clotheslines and clothespins. A binder holds photos from soldiers and messages saying how clean clothes were a luxury where they were stationed.

“We were amazed at the gratitude that you were able to show to us,” wrote a Navy master-at-arms. “The foot powder helped a bunch too.”

While Columbus Washboard appears to hold a monopoly, there aren’t indications it has used its market prowess to harm consumers or drive out rivals.

Monopoly power on its own isn’t illegal, said

Rebecca Allensworth,

a professor at Vanderbilt Law School, and Columbus Washboard didn’t create its monopoly. “It was just created by the washing machine,” she said.

Write to Kris Maher at [email protected]

“The market is small, but if we can make enough to keep in business, we really want to keep the business going,” said

Larry Gerstner,

one of the company’s four co-owners.

Sales jumped 57% in 2020 over the prior year, the company said, goosed by pandemic fears of societal collapse and limited laundry service. “There were groups of people that were panicking,” said Mr. Gerstner. His other business ventures include a nearby zip line attraction and a local hotel.

Columbus Washboard sold more than a million boards a year in its 1940s heyday. That was when wood-and-corrugated-steel boards were used for scrubbing clothing and linens by hand in a washtub of soap and water. Washing machines and postwar prosperity set off an inexorable decline.

Today, about 40% of company sales go to bluegrass and folk musicians who use the boards as percussion instruments. The Washboard Player Appreciation Society has its own Facebook page.

The town stages an annual washboard festival in June, and

Rebecca Lindsey

attends most years. Ms. Lindsey, who has played the washboard since 1988, has a custom model she named

Cosmo.

It weighs 47½ pounds and has 20 sound effects, including a four-bar xylophone, a duck call and a train whistle. When the thimbles on her fingers wear holes in Cosmo’s steel scrub board, she orders a replacement from Columbus Washboard.

“They’re the only washboard company left in America, but I would be loyal to them anyway,” she said.

Glenda Lehman Ervin, director of marketing for Lehman’s, a hardware store in Kidron, Ohio, sells Columbus washboards, along with oil lamps, wood-burning stoves and Amish-made rocking chairs. A bump in washboard sales tracks the blossoming popularity of growing and canning food, she said.

Many people are also looking for budget hacks. “Get yourself a washboard, like granny had,” said one post on a Reddit thread this month about money-saving laundry tricks. Another, presumably satirical, post, said, “A salad spinner works really well for very small loads.”

A washboard contrarian gave the modernist view. “Washing clothes with a washboard is time consuming and a pain,” the post said.

Yet there also is the prospect of washboard abs. “It’s a workout,” according to a comment in a Reddit thread last year.

Most of Columbus’s sales come via

Amazon.com,

including by customers who want to hang the washboards on a wall in the laundry room.

Carlene Blair,

of International Falls, Minn., said she has six washboards by her washer and dryer, including a Columbus model. Ms. Blair said she paid $9.99 for it at a Twin Cities-area Goodwill last spring. “I’ve never used one to wash clothes,” she said. “I like that antique feeling.”

Ms. Blair scoops up used washboards at garage sales and antique stores, She usually adds a coat of paint and a stenciled design to sell on

Facebook

or a local consignment shop to buyers who also like to see them hanging.

Columbus Washboard has a retail store in downtown Logan. On display are custom washboards with names of bands printed on them. One board was made for the Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band. Another read:

Dolly Parton’s

Smoky Mountain Adventures Dinner & Show.

Jacqui Barnett,

one of the company’s co-owners, said she delivered one of the boards to Ms. Parton and joined the legendary singer onstage at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., during a performance of the song “9 to 5.”

Columbus Washboard nearly went under in 1999. Mr. Gerstner and friends saw a story about its imminent closure in the Columbus Dispatch newspaper and decided to save it.

The partners first moved the company’s century-old presses and crimpers to a brick factory in Logan. A weathered 12-by-24-foot washboard replica on the side of the building is something of a local landmark.

Mr. Gerstner and Ms. Barnett’s late husband,

Bevan Barnett,

made improvements to materials and production. The two men, both engineers, had met in the 1970s while building an airstrip on the tiny island kingdom of Tonga when Mr. Gerstner was in the Peace Corps and the Barnetts were on assignment for a government aid program out of their native New Zealand.

At Columbus Washboard, the two engineers tried stronger steel to eliminate wooden slats on the back of the boards, saving production steps. They replaced steel strips with rolls of steel, reducing waste. The washboards also switched from pine to Ohio poplar, a harder wood that required stronger nails.

Two employees,

Lisa Jarrell

and

Linda Blackburn,

assemble the washboards with hammers and pneumatic nail guns. On a recent shift, Ms. Jarrell, an employee for 16 years, pulled at the legs of a pail-size “DUBL HANDI” washboard to test its sturdiness.

Linda Blackburn and Lisa Jarrell assembling washboards at the Columbus Washboard Co. this month.

Since 1999, the company has shipped washboards to every continent save Antarctica. A world map hangs on a wall, and colored push pins mark sales, from one end to the other—Uruguay, Finland, Madagascar, Japan, Australia.

The company donated about 5,000 washboards to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with soap, wash tubs, clotheslines and clothespins. A binder holds photos from soldiers and messages saying how clean clothes were a luxury where they were stationed.

“We were amazed at the gratitude that you were able to show to us,” wrote a Navy master-at-arms. “The foot powder helped a bunch too.”

While Columbus Washboard appears to hold a monopoly, there aren’t indications it has used its market prowess to harm consumers or drive out rivals.

Monopoly power on its own isn’t illegal, said

Rebecca Allensworth,

a professor at Vanderbilt Law School, and Columbus Washboard didn’t create its monopoly. “It was just created by the washing machine,” she said.

Write to Kris Maher at [email protected]