From KING COUNTY AND ITS EMERALD CITY: SEATTLE, Published by American Historical Press 1997

In 1900 the promise of a new century inspired men like David W. Bowen to found new companies.  Bowen started Puget Sound Sheet Metal Works in rented offices in the Hoge Building to provide sheet metal and roofing for Seattle’s booming lumber mills and new buildings.  His first plant was located at 1328 Western Avenue.

Today under the name PSF Industries, Inc., the firm serves customers in the western states, utilizing the most modern equipment in heavy metal fabricating and erecting, sheet metal contracting, and engineered air-conditioning systems.

In the early 1900s, Seattle was growing and by 1906 Bowen’s success required a move to a larger plant on Railroad Avenue, now Alaskan Way.

When Harry S. Bowen, son of the founder, joined the firm at the beginning of World War I, he helped launch the company’s war effort-building and fabricating lifeboats, rafts, ventilation and duct equipment, and providing metal fabricating for the area’s shipyards.  During these hectic years, the company bought land and built a new plant at 3632 East Marginal Way, a site that served as its home for many years.

In the’20s and ‘30s, when the pulp and paper industry was growing, Puget Sound Sheet Metal supplied complex sheet metal and roofing configurations for plants throughout the Northwest.

During World War II, virtually all of the company’s work was again war-related.  For several years it leased a large plant at the north end of Boeing Field and provided 1,000 aircraft workers to assemble fuselage sections, wings, bulkheads, pilot floors, and other aircraft parts for the B-17 and B-29 bombers.
The firm’s plant was completely destroyed by fire in 1949.  Puget Sound Sheet Metal continued operating in rented facilities with rebuilt and rented machinery while a new 70,000-quare-foot plant and office were constructed on a newly purchased 5-acre site adjacent to the destroyed plant.

In 1965 a group of key employees headed by James Beardsley Jr., acquired the remaining Bowen family interests in the business.  The new owners changed the name to PSF Industries, Inc., and moved the plant to its present home at 65 South Horton Street.

In the late 1980s the Custom Metal Fabrication and Construction Division shifted its emphasis to more on-site erection projects while maintaining its heavy steel plate and alloy fabrication facility.  This provides a single source responsibility for design, fabrication and erection of process and pressure vessels, heat exchangers, stacks, tanks, towers and erection and maintenance of boilers.

During the 1990s, PSF Industries has taken on increasingly larger and more complex fabrication and erection projects.  This work has been a major contribution to fiberboard bleach plant modernization projects in the Pulp and Paper industry.

In 1991, the Sheet Metal Division was sold to Warren Beardsley.  It continues to operate today as PSF Mechanical.

At the end of 1995, James Beardsley Jr., retired, selling the Beardsley family interest in PSF Industries to Vice President Stanley R. Miller.

PSF Industries continues to move forward under the leadership of Stanley R. Miller and his team of skilled and experienced employees.  The office and fabricating plant is still at 65 South Horton Street with an annual payroll averaging $5 ½ Million.  Field crews travel throughout the twelve Western States and British Columbia performing field Fabrication, erection and maintenance at industrial sites for the Aerospace, brewing, Mining, Petroleum Refining, Pulp & Paper and Utilities Industries.

Their knowledge and creative talent has enabled PSF to be a leader in ASME code design, engineering, fabrication welding of special materials and construction techniques.  Their accomplishments in the industry allow them to be one of the largest heavy steel plate fabricators and erectors in the Northwest.  PSF Industries is looking forward to celebrating their 100 year anniversary in the year 2000!