AMERICAN LAWN MOWER CO. (GREAT STATES CORPORATION)

A company based at Shelbyville, Indiana, USA, and still extant. The firm was founded at the end of the 19th century (1892) by four partners in Richmond, Indiana, at that time one of the centres of the American lawn mower industry. The firm moved to Muncie, Ind. in 1902. In 1936 the company acquired the Great States Company which had established itself in Shelbyville in 1923, making their first mower in 1925. The ALM Co. itself moved to Shelbyville in 1984. The firm specialises in "reel mowers" which is the US term for cylinder (usually sidewheel) machines.