The company started around 1870 as a sailmaker's shop. By the turn of the century it had a name, the United States Tent and Awning Company, and an address at the southwest corner of Randolph and Union in Chicago. What came off the sewing floor was not patio shade. It was big tops, sidewall, horse and wagon covers, and banners for the circus.
The trade ads of the day put it plainly: Circus and Carnival Tents, Banners. The company advertised in The Billboard alongside the shows it outfitted, and the side show banner department sold from a printed Banner List with a line under it that has aged beautifully - “Our Side Show Banner Department Has Always Pleased Good Showmen. References: Any First Class Show.” The painters who worked those banners included Fred G. Johnson, later called the Picasso of sideshow banners.
Chicago lasted the better part of a century, through four addresses and several owners. Then in 1959 the whole operation moved to Sarasota, Florida - the town the circus wintered in - and in 1965 it was reincorporated as a Florida company. Same trade, different weather.
The canvas is gone and the aluminum took over, but the job never really changed: build something that stands up outside, in the sun and the wind, and put your name on it. Today that means motorized louvered pergolas and awnings engineered for the Gulf Coast, still American-made, still built and installed by our own people.
