Boardman Company

The Boardman Company was a fire apparatus manufacturer located in Oklahoma City and Clinton, Oklahoma.

History
John Boardman (1866-1940) purchased the Wylie Company in 1908 and renamed it the Boardman Company in 1910. Unlike other apparatus builders, Boardman started as an iron and steel fabricator specializing in bridges, water towers, oil rigs and other metal products, including signs and mailboxes. The company didn't build its first fire truck until 1929. Fire apparatus became a full product line soon after, and in 1949 Boardman started marketing its products on a larger scale.

Boardman specialized in straightforward "Plain Jane" commercial cab apparatus, and delivered hundreds of trucks throughout the US Midwest and West. In the 1960s, a partnership with Pitman Snorkel added aerial platforms to the product line, and by the 1970s, some aerial trucks equipped with Grove ladders were delivered. Boardman acquired Readi-Tower from Reading Techmatics in 1984 and added booms and telescopic platforms. Readi-Tower was sold to Aerial Innovations in the early 1990s.

In the mid-1990s, Boardman was acquired by the Sinor Manufacturing Company and moved to a new manufacturing facility in Clinton. In 1998, both Sinor and Boardman were purchased by American LaFrance and fire truck production transferred to North Carolina in 2002. The Clinton operation became an ambulance plant and service center until ALF experienced financial difficulties in the late 2000s.