In 1843, an enterprising businessman named Frederick Trent Stanley established a little shop in New Britain, Connecticut to manufacture door bolts and other hardware from wrought iron. Stanley's Bolt Manufacturing was only one of dozens of small foundries and other backyard industries in town struggling to make a go of it by turning out metal products. But Stanley possessed a special innovative spirit and an uncommon passion for doing things right and his modest enterprise prospered and grew as The Stanley Works.