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COMPANY HISTORY:
The Davis Sewing Machine Company was purchased by George Huffman in 1888. He moved the plant form New York to Dayton, Ohio in 1889. The Davis Company built there first bicycles in 1892. At first, they made bikes for other companies and hardware stores. 1895 was the first year that they produced bikes under their name, "Dayton". By 1897 Davis was the largest manufacturer of bikes in the United States. Davis produced top notch bikes with very fine finishes. All the bikes were produced in the same color, a carmine red.
In 1916 Davis purchased the Yale and Snell lines from the Consolidated Manufacturing Company of Toledo, Ohio. Davis also purchased the "National" line of bikes from the National Bicycle Company of Bay City, Michigan. Davis kept the National head badge changing only the name of the city in which the bikes were built. Davis even kept painting the bikes the National blue color.
Davis also produced bikes under the names of Duro, Dixie Flyer, LaFrance, Daytonia, Shrayer, Ohio, Shapleish Hardware, Western Auto and Western Flyer.
Horace Huffman had worked in the business since 1900 and by 1922 he was in charge of liquidating the assets of The Davis Sewing Machine Company. He used the profits from the liquidation to form the Huffman Manufacturing Company. The Davis Sewing Machine Company had survived 30 years in the bike industry, but were finished by 1922. Horace Huffman was put in charged of liquidating the companies machinery. He used the funds to create the Huffman Manufacturing Company in 1924. The remaining Davis bike inventory was sold through 1925. The Huffman company concentrated on non-bike products until 1928 when the Huffman Company incorporated for the purpose of building bikes. Work began on modernizing the Davis factory. It wasn't until October 1934 that the Huffman Company announced their new line of bikes. They used many of the Davis names including Snell, National, LaFrance, Dixie Flyer and Dayton (for the top bikes only). New names that appeared included Zephyr, Airflyte, Davis Flyer as well as many private label brands. The Yale named had been transferred to the D.P. Harris Company. All Huffman bikes used balloon tires and "Aircrafted" frames. All joints were fillet brazed, then ground down and polished. The models were identified by D (Dayton) and H (all others) and a number (1, 2, 3 or 4), a higher number meaning more equipment.
Later in 1957 Huffman acquired the bicycle division of Monark as well. Some of the Monark tooling was shipped to Celina and the Monark name lived on into the 1980's. Some Monark parts began to show up on Huffy branded bikes such as the "Custom Royale". Huffy's four millionth bike was produced in 1961.
By 1975 Huffy had a 28.7% market share. In 1977 the named was officially changed to the Huffy Corporation. In the 1980's Huffy acquired the rights to the Raleigh name in the United States. The Huffy Tech Center in Miamisburg, Ohio, under the direction of Mike Melton, produced the 1984 Olympic bikes. Greg LeMond would ride Huffy branded bikes in the Tour De France.
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