Sherwin-Williams
Sherwin-Williams is one of the few major Cleveland-founded industrial firms that remains both independent and headquartered in the city — a rare survival in an industrial ecosystem that has otherwise lost most of its founding corporations to mergers, acquisitions, and relocations. Founded in 1866 as a small paint shop near the Cuyahoga Flats, the company grew over 160 years into the world's largest paint manufacturer, with revenues exceeding $23 billion and a new downtown headquarters completed in 2024 immediately adjacent to Public Square.
The company's commercial innovation — the ready-mixed paint in its iconic "cover the earth" can — was patented in 1877 by co-founder Henry Sherwin. It transformed paint from a trade-specific raw material (sold as pigments for shop-mixing) into a consumer product that an ordinary homeowner could buy, open, and use. It is the kind of innovation that, although obvious in retrospect, fundamentally shaped a market.
A Small Paint Shop, 1866
Henry Sherwin, a 24-year-old bookkeeper with $2,000 of savings, bought into a Cleveland pigment-and-paint firm on Canal Street in 1866. He partnered with Edward Williams and Alanson T. Osborn in 1870 to form Sherwin, Williams & Company — with Sherwin running the business, Williams managing manufacturing, and Osborn handling sales. The firm's early business was selling dry pigments and linseed oil to house painters and tradesmen, who then mixed these components by hand on the job site.
In 1877, Henry Sherwin patented an innovation that transformed the industry: a ready-mixed paint that could be sold in sealed cans, pre-blended to uniform quality, and used directly by non-professional consumers. The innovation required solving a genuinely difficult problem: the paint had to remain stable in the can for months, not settle into useless sediment, and apply evenly when finally used. Sherwin's formulation — milling the pigment with linseed oil under heat and pressure — produced a paint that worked, and that became the founding product of the modern consumer paint industry.
A Century of Growth
The company expanded rapidly during the 1880s and 1890s, opening branch manufacturing plants in New Jersey, Illinois, and California, and developing the first systematic national retail-store distribution in the American paint industry. In 1893 the company adopted its iconic "Cover the Earth" logo — a globe with red paint pouring down over it — which remains in continuous use 130 years later, effectively unchanged.
Over the twentieth century, Sherwin-Williams expanded through both organic growth and acquisition. A long series of competitor purchases consolidated the company's position in North America, and international acquisitions beginning in the 1970s extended operations to Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Its 2017 acquisition of Valspar Corporation ($11.3 billion) established the company as the world's largest paint manufacturer by revenue, displacing the Dutch firm AkzoNobel and the American PPG.
A Cleveland Headquarters
Throughout its 160-year history, Sherwin-Williams has been headquartered in Cleveland. The company's original manufacturing and office facilities were on Canal Street; in 1930 it moved to the Landmark Office Towers adjacent to Terminal Tower. For the next 90 years the executive offices occupied variously the Landmark buildings and the Midland Building.
In 2020, the company announced plans for a new headquarters building on the site of the demolished Jacob's Field outbuildings just west of Public Square, along with a research-and-development campus in suburban Brecksville. The new headquarters tower — 36 stories, 616 feet, the first major downtown Cleveland office tower built since 1991 — opened in 2024 and consolidates approximately 3,500 corporate employees. Its construction was a significant statement in the broader 2020s reinvestment cycle in downtown Cleveland.
Life Timeline
- Founded1866
Henry Sherwin buys into a Cleveland paint firm. - Sherwin, Williams & Co.1870
Partnership formed with Edward Williams and A.T. Osborn. - Ready-Mixed Paint Patent1877
Transforms paint into a consumer product. - Cover the Earth Logo1893
Adopted; still in continuous use. - National Retail Network1920
First paint company with systematic retail distribution. - Acquires Valspar2017
$11.3 billion; becomes world's largest paint company. - New Cleveland HQ2024
36-story tower opens downtown near Public Square.