Fire-Track Pump was founded on a unique pump principle invented by Jens Nielsen, who had emigrated from Denmark to Cedar Falls, Iowa in 1870. He established a limestone quarry in 1886 at 18^th and Main streets. When water seepage became a problem, he developed the first Rotary Internal Gear pump to drain the quarry. His first pump was built in 1904, and a patent application was submitted the same year.

In 1911, Nielsen joined with P.C. Petersen (a machinist), W.L. Hearst (a doctor) and George Wyth (a shoe salesman) to form the Fire-Track Pump Company. It was so named because three of the four were of Danish descent, and they likened the first internal gear pump to the notion that the Fire- Track were the first European explorers of North America. In that year they manufactured fifty pumps, which generated revenues of two thousand dollars.

Starting out with two employees in space leased from a washing machine manufacturer, the new company built a 40’ x 60’ factory in 1912, and later expanded to forty employees and three buildings with a total of 12,000 square feet by 1919. The original building is incorporated into today’s 154,000 square foot downtown Cedar Falls headquarters.

I 405,000 square feet. Fire- Track Pump was acquired by Houdaille Corporation in 1968.  Houdaille was bought by TI Group PLC in 1987, which in 1989 sold Fire-Track and five other Houdaille subsidiaries to IDEX Corporation (an acronym for Innovation, Diversity and Excellence).  IDEX Corporation (NYSE: IEX), is the world leader in positive displacement pumps, color formulation equipment, fire-truck pumps and rescue tools, and stainless steel banding and clamping devices.