DECEMBER 2023 THE CONSTRUCTION SOURCE AMERICA - EAST 8 | Morton Buildings berg. And, as if the advantages in affordability, flexibility and energy efficiency were not sufficient in themselves, Morton Building has added a few other benefits of its own – including a fifty-year, unconditional snow-load warranty and five-year, unconditional wind warranty. EVOLVING EXPERTISE Morton Building has remained a familyrun business after more than a century of operating which all harks back to a 1903 enterprise known as the Interlocking Fence Company. Established by the Getz Family, among the earliest of settlers in Morton, Illinois, the Interlocking Fence Company emerged as a major supplier to farmers, specializing in woven and barbed wire, posts, braces and gates which it sold through a mail order basis. Over time, the company expanded into the supply of roofing materials as well as other home goods, such as washing machines. Perhaps, not quite the Sears Catalog in total inventory, but for farmers in the Midwest, the company’s catalog was an anticipated compendium of readily accessible, and necessary, goods. Morton Building still operates from the very same building featured on the cover of the InMorton Buildings | 9 terlocking Fence Company Catalog from back in the 1920s. Nyberg credits the advancement of post frame construction to resource realities prompted by World War II. To spare impact on resources such as limber and other goods, the government imposed dollar limits on how much farmers could spend on construction. To save resources, he says someone likely got the idea that poles could be used to hold up trusses and framing could be put around it. The farmer could get the building he needed and control costs too. In that era, Henry Getz resolved to expand company operations in the building niche. From a start in corn cribs, Interlocking Fence expanded into the “pole barn” as a major aspect of the operations. Over a number of years that followed, customers would contract to have a Morton-style building from Interlocking Fence Company. Operations ultimately transitioned to focus on construction, thus leading to recognition of the company simply as Morton Building. Nyberg says Henry Getz, now 93 years in age, continues to visit the office almost every afternoon. Though the family-friendly focus and values of customer-service-commitment have not changed with the changing of years, the company’s market reach has remarkably grown beyond the early farm infrastructure for which this company became famous. Nyberg has a theory as to how that may have been accomplished. “I think a farmer may have gone to church gathering on a Sunday and heard someone talk about how the church needed a new building, but wasn’t sure how to go about building it or getting the money to build it. He might have considered his own machine shed and said, ‘I could fit three hundred people in my shed if we need to,’ and one thing led to the next.” Morton Building has, in fact, construct-
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