We don’t know how we missed this story and photo essay when it was published back in May … but fortunately we caught it while it is still available online.

In May, the New York Times published a feature article about the Columbus Washboard Company, which since 1999 has been housed in a former shoe factory building in historic Logan, Ohio.  The building’s facade features an oversized washboard as a front decorative element -- much like the giant wooden bat that graces the Louisville Slugger building in Kentucky.  Inside, workers assemble the seemingly anachronistic devices which, as the story points out, are being sent to soldiers in Iraq and other conflicts.  Boards are sent in packages which contain soaps, clothespins and other necessities for hand washing clothes.

The pictures in the Times’ photo slideshow convey the strong pride of workmanship that goes into each washboard, using methods not terribly different than those used to supply troops with washboards during World War II.  The former factory building adds to a sense of the past, and to the product itself -- it would be difficult to envision washboards being constructed in a new, modern sterile factory building.

America’s only surviving washboard manufacturer also sells to musicians and the general public, and opens its facilities for free public tours.  The Columbus Washboard Company now also sponsors the annual Washboard Music Festival in Logan.

Click here to visit the company online.  For a taste of washboard music, below is a vintage 1928 video of Eddie Thomas and Carl Scott playing “My Ohio Home” -- for our subscribers, the video can be found by clicking here.