On April 6 1956 three individuals started a corporation of which they named D & P Manufacturing. These three were Dale Porter, Don Petterburg, and Duffy Palmer. Shortly after the birth of their company, two of the wives began having conflicts over their husbands work loads. This led my father, Dale Porter, to buy out both the other men and soon after renamed the company Clearfield Manufacturing. My father was a great entrepreneur and due to his farming background developed several hay handling equipment items that were manufactured and sold for over 20 years. The main items that were manufactured were hay stack wagons, hay loaders (machines that load hay onto the wagons), and hay elevators. Dale had developed a method to stack the hay onto the wagons so that the wagon could be tilted back in a totally vertical position. By repositioning some chains, the wagon could pull out and leave the hay standing 90-95% of the time. Later, more sophisticated equipment entered the market from other companies, and the demand for our hay equipment began to diminish.

In the late 60’s Dale was approached by L.D. Todd of Calumet Y to produce mine roof support mats. L.D. felt that business in the intermountain west area could be developed, and therefore decided that if a local manufacturer could produce the mats for him, he in turn would sell them to the mines. A contract of agreement was formed in which CM began producing mats for L.D. This continued for possibly several years, until Dale approached L.D. with the problem of a rate increase, in which L.D. refused to comply. Consequently, Dale was forced to split off from the agreement and ventured out on his own in the mine mat business. This proved to be very beneficial to the company. In 1971 a new building was constructed specifically to produce the mats and between the years of 1971-1980 the business flourished. The mine mat business basically put us in the steel business as coils were purchased from mills such as Geneva Steel. Mine mats are produced from steel coils, and as a result, Dale had a lot of opportunities to purchase other gage material, off excess prime lists, to use for other products.

In 1980 another building was constructed to process and sell other gages of steel. In 1982 a small CTL line was purchased. In 1984 a large coil processing building was constructed and a large combination CTL and slitting line was purchased and installed. At this time the company begun to toll process. The venture looked promising as only one other processor was in the valley at that time.

One of our first customers was Reliance Steel in which a good lasting relationship formed until around 1995, when Reliance decided to invest in a new facility and install their own equipment. Around 1996 one of our other customers, Ryerson Steel, began to show interest in expanding their business in our area, in which they began increasing the amount processing that we did for them. In 1997 we built an addition to the coil processing building to become more efficient and provide more space for anticipated growth expected from Ryerson. We purchased a light gage CTL line and installed it in 1998. In 1999 we purchased a lighter gage slitting line and began slitting for several other customers. Also at that time we separated the original heavy gage CTL and slitting line to be able to slit and level at the same time. Before this, we were only able to do one or the other due to the machinery sharing the same payoff uncoiler.

Dale had 5 sons and 1 daughter and as his kids would come into the business other ventures began. Some were successful and others were not. The following is a list of some of those ventures:

1977 Clearfield Conveyors. This company was sold in 2002 to Cleasby Mfg. and is still in operation.

1980 Clearfield Sales and Roofing Co. This company is still in operation by one of the sons.

1982 Pioneer Concrete

1. 1984  Heritage Stoves (wood burning stoves) was purchased and later dissolved.

2. 1985  Small trailers and dumpsters were manufactured for a short time.

3. 1986  Clearfield Products. This company sold steel for a short time and was later dissolved

1993 Jamestown Stoves (pellet and gas stoves) was purchased and later sold. 2000 R & G Molding (decorative molding) still in operation.

On April 6, 2006, our 50th anniversary, we changed our name to CMsteel Processing Inc., since our products had changed and Clearfield Manufacturing no longer represented the services that we provided.

As of this writing (May 2021) CMsteel’s main product lines is Vinyl Fencing reinforcement and mine roof mats.

Of course our greatest asset is our people, since we have some of the most reliable and dependable people that I have had the privilege to work with.

Rod & K. Sarah Porter (Co-owners)