Abernathy Company

The company began as Ralph Brothers Laundry in 1898 serving Texarkana, Arkansas and Texarkana, Texas consumers, hotels, restaurants, doctors offices, and hospitals. The initial venture into the chemical business was made to reduce costs in the laundry business. We soon found that our manufactured products were of such a quality that other laundries would buy them. This proved to be our first entry into the soap and detergent market. As wash and wear garments became more popular and hotels and motels began installing on-site laundries, our laundry and dry cleaning business suffered. We were fortunate, however, in that many more customers existed for our soaps and detergents. In the early 1970's, Ralph Brothers purchased AB Janitorial with the intention of expanding the soap and detergent line outside the laundry business. Formulas for all-purpose cleaners, degreasers, disinfectants, glass cleaners, etc. were developed, manufactured and sold. The company name was changed to RB Chemical. In the 1970's, while calling on our chemical customers, we found that there was a need for contract cleaning in large industrial plants. We put together a crew and using our industrial line of manufactured cleaning products, began our contract cleaning division. Because our products and services became more diversified and included cleaning products, towels and tissues, janitorial supplies and contract cleaning services, our name was changed to Abernathy Company during the 1990's.