Cleveland Hardware & Forging Company traces its roots to a small ironworks and wagon hardware factory established in Cleveland in the late 1870s. The business was formally incorporated as the Cleveland Hardware Company in 1881 by a group of local investors, including Myron T. Herrick, who later became governor of Ohio. Initially, the company manufactured iron and steel hardware for wagons, carriages, and sleighs, becoming one of the country's major suppliers of these products. As automobiles grew in popularity during the early twentieth century, the company expanded into manufacturing automotive hardware and metal components. In 1906, Cleveland Hardware opened a new facility on East 79th Street dedicated to producing drop forgings, a process that shapes heated metal under tremendous pressure to create strong industrial parts. The company became one of the nation's leading drop-forging manufacturers, supplying components for automobiles and other industries. In 1932, the business officially adopted the name Cleveland Hardware & Forging Company, and its factories later played an important role in producing materials for the military during World War II. After being purchased by the Pittsburgh-based H.K. Porter Company in 1957, the Cleveland operations were eventually consolidated at the East 79th Street facility. The company returned to independent ownership in 1968 and continued manufacturing industrial hardware, eventually shifting its forging operations to facilities in Wisconsin and Illinois in 1996. The East 79th Street property remains a reminder of Cleveland's industrial manufacturing history and the city's once-thriving metalworking industry.