Is the Belmont casket company of Columbus in Ohio still in business?

Answer 1

In the 20th century, Belmont was one of the big metal casket producers in the United States and soon gained a reputation of making caskets of high quality. It was best known as manufacturer of lead coated steel caskets; the environmental hazardous lead coating process provided the carbon steel with properties similar to that of stainless steel. The company, whose graphic logo showed a mounted knight carrying a lance, used to advertise the strength of its caskets to withstand the pressure of earth in graves (without burial vault or grave liner) by publishing pictures of one of the Belmont caskets with some 50 bags of cement on top. After the Second World War, Belmont also was renown for the unmatched quality of color advertisements in trade magazines: the casket pictures shown were so impressive that sometimes it was difficult for the real caskets to fully match their appearance in the pictures.

Having provided the casket of President Wilson already - an elliptic steel casket covered with dark cloth - Belmont became most famous in the funeral profession when Marilyn Monroe was buried in the top of the line product of the company. Westwood Village Park Chapel had provided a silver finished solid bronze double lid "Masterpiece" hermetical glassless gasket sealer casket with a hand tufted champagne colored velvet interior (with some additional satin and silk lining) for the funeral of the movie star. The "Masterpiece" model used to be manufactured to custom order in a large variety of materials (steel, copper, bronze), various finishes (brushed, polish, painted), many different interior upholstering materials as well as many other design details (various forms of handles and types of lid, available sealed or unsealed, with or without inner glass panel, etc.). The "versatile sealer" design, for example, had a patented double lid which could be arranged in seven different ways. As bronze casket, the "Masterpiece" was made of extra strong and heavy unusual 15 gauge material (meaning that some parts of the casket were made of 14 ga (64 oz) sheets, other parts of 16 ga (48 oz) sheets. The double lid solid bronze "Masterpiece" cost twice as much as the solid mahogany luxury Marsellus 710 casket used for the burial of President Kennedy. Belmont had registered the "Masterpiece" trademark in 1957 - the same year in which another nationally renown funeral service supplier, the Practical Burial Footwear Company, came to Columbus, a city which is also the home address of one of the oldest funeral supply firm, the family owned and operated Clark grave vault company, founded in 1898.

In 1973, Belmont provided the casket for President Lyndon Johnson: a silver gray heavily rounded corner design (probably the "Columbus" model) made of lead coated steel. It seems that also the famous FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover was buried in a lead coated Belmont casket (probably a "Masterpiece") in 1972. While the Belmont casket company of Columbus is gone, several of its designs including the famous "Masterpiece" are still in production after having been acquired by VerPlank Enterprises of Iron City, TN. The silver finished "Twin Seal Masterpiece" double lid bronze design, which underwent only a few minor changes since the time of Marilyn Monroe's funeral, can be admired in the Online catalog of that company.

As to the history of the company, it should be added that Belmont had come to Columbus in 1916, where it moved into a four story building at 330 W. Spring Street, in the neighborhood of the State Penitentiary. In 1930, corpses from a fire in the penitentiary were stored temporarily in caskets inside the factory. The 175,000-square-foot building, which had been constructed in 1885, was completely redeveloped in recent times, but a few relics of the the old Belmont building with the inscription "Belmont casket company" are still visible today. Belmont also opened another factory building in Shadyside, Ohio to expand its production.

Answer 2

No, the Belmont casket company closed down at the end of the 1970s.

Belmont had come to Columbus in 1916, where it moved into a four story building at 330 W. Spring Street. The 175,000-square-foot building, which had been constructed in 1885, was completely redeveloped in recent times, but a few relics of the the old Belmont building with the inscription "Belmont casket company" are still visible today. Belmont also acquired another building in Shadyside, Ohio to expand its production. Belmont gradually became one of the big metal casket producers in the United States and soon gained a reputation of making caskets of high quality. It was best known as producer of corrosion resistant lead-coated steel caskets. The company advertised the strength of its caskets to withstand the pressure of earth in graves without burial vault by publishing pictures of a Belmont casket with some 50 bags of cement on top. After the Second World War, Belmont also gained a reputation for the unmatched quality of color advertisements in trade magazines: the casket pictures shown were so impressive that sometimes it was difficult for the real caskets to fully match their appearance in the pictures.

After having provided the casket of President Wilson already, Belmont became most famous with the funeral profession when Marilyn Monroe was buried in the top-of-the-line product of the company. Westwood Village Park Chapel provided a silver-finished 48 oz solid bronze glassless double lid "Masterpiece" casket with a champagne colored velvet, satin, and silk interior for the funeral of the movie star. The "Masterpiece" was manufactured to custom order in a large variety of materials (steel, bronze), finishing colors (brushed, polish, painted), interior upholstering and design details (various forms of handles and lid, availability with or without inner glass panel, etc.). Belmont had registered the trademark "Masterpiece" in 1957 - the same year in which another nationally renown funeral service supplier, the Practical Burial Footwear Company, was established in Columbus.

While the Belmont casket company of Columbus is gone, several of its designs including the famous "Masterpiece" are still in production after having been acquired by VerPlank Enterprises of Tennessee. (The "Masterpiece" design, which underwent only a few minor changes, can be admired in the online catalog of the company).