Ideal Stencil Building circa 1911

1911 The building is built by George Remnsnider for the newly formed Ideal Stencil Machine Company. Remnsnider was a prolific inventor and held several U.S. patents. Several prominent businesses were shareholders, including Excelsior Foundry and Century Bass Works. The office building was originally one story.

1915-1918 Ideal Machines are sold extensively throughout the world and to the Armed Forces. Letters of praise for the exclusive Ideal machines are received from the Ford, Dodge, General Electric and others.

1920 Ideal Stencil’s General Manager, J.W. Marsh, founds Marsh Stencil Machine Company, also in Belleville.

1939-1945 Ideal Stencil Machines are used extensively by the U.S. Armed Forces in World War II. During a peak production year, more than 2,000 stencil machines are made by over 70 employees. A second story is added to the office building.

1954 The legendary Ideal-Mark valve action pen is introduced on the market with much success.

1961 Richard Hilgard purchases Ideal Stencil from Clarence Rapp and expands the machine shop.

1977 Hilgard sells Ideal to Vibac Co. of Italy, a manufacturer of packaging tapes.

1981 Ideal acquires the Speedry division of Magic Marker Corporation and starts making metal markers.

U-Mark building, February 2006

1994 Ideal begins making the Ideal-Mark™ and other industrial valve action markers in house, at the Belleville plant, and sales grow substantially.

2002 Vibac Co. sells Ideal to Diagraph Corp., an ITW Company. ITW decides to shut down the 91 year-old plant and the building remains vacant. Virtually all Ideal employees are laid off.

2002 Marco Ziniti, formerly the General Manager of Ideal, founds U-Mark, Inc. a manufacturer of industrial marking pens and supplier of stencil products. The Company employs several former Ideal employees, and is initially located on 2401 West Main Street in Belleville.

2005 U-Mark introduces the greenlabel™ series of paint markers and expands production, outgrowing the West Main Street building.

2007 U-Mark, Inc. moves to the 102 Iowa Ave. plant. To many of its employees, the move is a homecoming (U-Mark employees worked a combined 120+ years in the building). Extensive renovations to the 18,000 sq. ft. building have been started, and are planned to continue, to restore the historic building to its original condition.

Ideal-Mark and Speedry are trademarks of ITW