Superior Essex

Superior Essex operates more than 20 manufacturing facilities worldwide, and has more than 4,100 employees. As its name implies, Superior Essex is the result of combining two companies.

The Essex Wire Corporation was founded in Detroit in 1930 when businessman Addison Holton leased 125,000 square feet of a Ford Motor Company plant, and 700 Essex employees began making Model A wiring harnesses, battery cables and other insulated wire products. The company later relocated to Fort Wayne, Indiana. By the 1940s, Essex was producing enough wire to build the millions of transformers used by America and its allies during World War II. Essex also produced thousands of miles of field telephone wire for the Army Signal Corps, as well as wiring harnesses for B-24 bombers. Essex was awarded the prestigious "E" Award by the Secretary of War. By 1965, it had 44 plants.

Superior Cable was founded in 1954, in Hickory, North Carolina to make plastic insulated phone cable and wire. In 1967, Continental Telephone acquired Superior Cable and merged the company with other manufacturers. Superior Cable became independent again when it was divested in 1976. It was acquired by Siecor Corporation, a producer of fiber optic cable owned by Siemens and Corning. In 1985, Siecor divested Superior, and Superior introduced its own fiber optic cable. In 1993, The Alpine Group acquired Superior and began the acquisition of other cable makers.  At the same time, Superior expanded its product line to include data cables.

In 1999, Superior acquired Essex and formed Superior Essex, which is now based in Atlanta, and is the largest wire and cable manufacturer in North America.