3/1/1946
Ed Lowe is discharged from the Navy and returns to his home in southwest Michigan.ns.
4/1/1946
Ed Lowe joins his father’s business in Marcellus, Mich., selling ice and coal to nearby residents and industrial absorbents to commercial customers, including the Whirlpool, Bendix and Studebaker corporations.
11/1/1983
— The Maricopa plant undergoes a major expansion, including the addition of a 30,000-square-foot warehouse and a completely automated packaging line, which enables it produce 120 tons of finished product per year.
10/8/1974
Ed Lowe receives U.S. Patent #233,158 for a scoop used to remove waste from sanitary cat boxes, one of the 32 patents he receives during his lifetime.
5/30/1969
Time magazine writes an article about Ed Lowe’s corporate health incentive program, the I Can’t Afford to Lose You Club, which he established to motivate overweight executives to lose weight.
1/28/1958
Ed purchases a clay plant in Olmsted, Ill. for $39,000 (minus eight years of back taxes) from the American Charcoal Co. in Detroit and renames the new company “Star Enterprises.”
1/1/1947
After giving his neighbor some fuller’s earth to use in her cat box, Ed sees a brand new application for the fuller’s earth that he had been selling to : as an absorbent for cat boxes.
7/1/1977
Lowe’s Inc. establishes its first in-house advertising and promotion department.
3/5/1958
Lowe’s Inc. investigates the use of additives such as sassafras bark and oil, to control odor in Kitty Litter.
9/1/1948
During its first year on the market, Kitty Litter participates in 30 cat shows across the country. At these shows, Ed Lowe provides free Kitty Litter in exchange for sales booths.