In 1874, William Dana Ewart patented his “link-belt” chain invention and founded the Ewart Manufacturing Company in Belle Plaine, Iowa.
Now 150 years later, LBX employees are celebrating one and a half centuries of innovation since Ewart introduced his invention.
This summer, the company hosted a special event at its Customer Experience Center in Lexington, Kentucky to mark the milestone.
“We at LBX are proud of our Link-Belt heritage and are honoured to be part of a legacy that spans 150 years,” said Eric Sauvage, President and CEO. “We shape our future together with our employees and our business partners, guided by our long-term strategic framework while leaning on our core purpose, living and breathing from our core values, and relying on our strategic anchors to be successful.”
The company was born when Ewart, who was a farm implement dealer, saw a need for a better way to repair farm machinery for the United States’ emerging agriculture sector.
Ewart proposed a solution to the frequent repairs required on chain belt drives on harvesters. He realized the drive chain could be made with several detachable links. When the chain belt would break, his invention would allow the defective section to be replaced in the field, rather than at a metal shop, which eliminated downtime for farmers.
Ewart called his new product the Link Belt.
Soon after, Ewart created the Link-Belt Machinery Company, and the Link-Belt Engineering Company. Together, his companies would develop the first wide-gauge, steam-powered coal-handling clamshell crane. The machines continued to use the link-belt design as a foundation for all types of machinery.
Throughout the past 150 years, Link-Belt has grown from the invention of a “linked belt” chain drive to a manufacturer of excavators, material handling equipment, and forestry machines.
The company has a long history of innovation, from introducing the first crawler-mounted crane shovels and wheel-mounted excavators to many features that are now standard on excavators, including hydraulic controls.
In 1998, the excavator division of Link-Belt Construction Equipment became LBX Company, headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky.
Within the past 25 years, the Link-Belt Excavator Company and its parent company, Sumitomo, have introduced a robust lineup of equipment encompassing six product series: Quantum, LX, X2, X3, X4 and the recently launched X4S.
Further expanding their lineup, the 40 Series for forestry applications debuted in 2015, followed by the 2024 launch of the 40B Series.
Link-Belt machine sales extend throughout North and Latin America, with LBX do Brasil as their subsidiary for distribution and support in Brazil and the broader Latin American market.
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