Warwood Tool

Warwood Tool hand-forges axes, mauls, bars, hammers, and other hand tools from American steel in the same Wheeling, West Virginia, factory it has occupied since the early 1900s. Every tool is forged, not cast — a slower, labor-intensive process the company has stuck with since Henry Warwood, a Pittsburgh steel worker turned founder, started the business in 1854. The tools are made for people who use them for a living: railroad crews, loggers, ironworkers, miners, and firefighters, sold direct with no middlemen between the factory and the buyer.

The company has remained family-owned for nearly 170 years, with only seven changes in ownership, and it shows in the details — multiple generations of the same families still work the factory floor. Warwood’s tools have shipped to soldiers in every American war since the Civil War, and its entrenching mattock saw heavy use digging trenches and foxholes in both World Wars. The manufacturing facility has even been featured on the History Channel’s The Men Who Built America.