American manufacturing is alive and well at Grain Belt Supply Co Inc., Salina, Kansas. The company started in the grain elevator business in 1949. In 1953, Darwin Sampson, part-owner of Sampson Construction, purchased 25 percent of Grain Belt. Sampson built approximately 450 of the large concrete grain storage elevators that are used in agricultural towns throughout the Midwest. He purchased the balance of the business in 1960 and remains the majority stockholder today.
Grain Belt has since grown into a company with turnkey manufacturing services from development to finished product. It performs product design, short or long runs, prototype development, laser cutting, rolling, welding, bending, cutting, shearing, drilling, tapping, punching, sawing, stamping, forming and shipping. Manufactured products still include grain elevators, but it also makes a range of metal fabrications and laser cut product.