The History of Thompson Brothers

It began with two men and their dream of one day owning a welding and industrial supply business. They were Don Thompson and Clarence "Tommy" Thompson; they had grown up the sons of a local blacksmith and became welders by trade.
In the early 1940's money was tight and banks were leery of loaning money after the great depression, so Don and Tommy thought of an inexpensive way to generate capital. In 1946, they built the Roller Dome, roller-skating rink, which was planned to be a temporary business while they focused on their real plans. They ran the skating rink year round on weekends and nights as a part time job. One year later they converted a corner of the Roller Dome in to a samll showroom and started Thompson Brothers Welding and Industrial Supply. As the business grew they added a fifteen hundred square feet warefhouse at the rear of the Roller Dome, this allowed them to add more storage for gas cylinders and two truck bays for loading and unloading supplies.
In 1948 the two brothers purchased a piece of ground to the east of the Roller Dome, at 2319 West 8th Street, and started to build a retail location with a showroom, warehouse, and two docking bays. They continued operation of the Roller Dome while they worked on growing their primary business. The family owned business was incorporated in the state of Kansas on March 26th, 1965. In 1971, Tommy bought out Don's share of Thompson Brothers Supply, Tommy continued on expanding the welding and industrial supply businessdoubling it in size through 1978. In the fall of 1978, Clarence "Tommy" Jewel Thompson passed away. His three sons Rick Thompson, Nick Thompson, Tommy Thompson and son-in-law James McGuire acquired the business from their mother Katherine Thompson. The corporation was expanded to include all four members, this allowed them to add new lines of inventory and expand operations to include such things as sales and service of fire extinguishers, safety products, automotive paints and body supplies, and other lines of industrial supplies.
In the mid 1980's through acquisition of another area welding supply distributor, the company was able to more than double their welding gas business. They then acquired the Warburton Valve buildings on West 4th Street in Coffeyville. This allowed Thompson Brothers to expand their gas filling operation, to include the filling of oxygen, nitrogen, argon, carbon dioxide, propane, and several specialty gas mixtures.
In June of 1997 Thompson Brothers acquired Jones Welding Supply of Bartlesville, Oklahoma. The new branch location enabled Thompson Brothers to expand their territory and increase the total showroom, primary warehouse, cylinder handling facility, and secondary warehouse to over 50,000 square feet of space.
Today, Thompson Brothers continues to expand throughout Southeast Kansas, Northeast Oklahoma and Southwest Missouri, serving the welding, industrial and automotive and industrial finishing markets. Thompson Brothers has continually increased the services offered to include an in-house specialty gas lab and certification of those gases, an in-house repair facility where most major brands of machines, torches and regulators are repaired and a fleet of rental welding equipment for the larger projects or the weekend task.
Over 55 years ago, two brothers had a dream that they were able to realize. Today, two brothers, Rick and Nick Thompson continue on that reality, serving the area with the same values and level of service that customers have come to expect from Thompson Brothers.

Tommy and Don Thompson



1950's Store Front



1950's Showroom