It was 1886 – Grover Cleveland was the U.S. president, Spain abolished slavery in Cuba, and upon emerging from his mother’s womb, future baseball immortal Ty Cobb told the doctor to “go to hell.”

Cobb would later make an impact on the sports world, but in St. Louis that year a company was emerging that would make another kind of impact. A METAL impact.
 

Working for the city’s police department, Johannes von Stoutenheim designed and created the first METAL sign for the purposes of beating down unruly jail inmates and suspected criminals. It was printed with the words “Property of STLPD” so the inmates would never forget who beat them.

But when Missouri Governor John S. Marmaduke ruled the beating of inmates and suspects with METAL signs to be unconstitutional – instead ordering officers to use Billy clubs – Stoutenheim was forced to find a new use for his branded METAL signs.
 

“And it hit me,” Stoutenheim said. “Signs didn’t need to just be about beating criminals. They could provide a service and make a different kind of impression. Signs could tell people where to go, how to stop at an intersection, what to drink, how to properly smoke, or which restroom was for pants and which was for skirts.” 
 

Thus, Stout Industries was born, helping companies direct consumers to their goods and services and making a METAL impact on their businesses and sales.
 

In today’s world there are so many distractions – Sarah Jessica Parker looks like a horse, cats that look like Hitler, overweight monkeys wearing shirts  – but the impact of METAL eliminates many of them. Consider that unless you’ve been drinking heavily, you don’t “friend” a METAL sign. There’s no fast-forwarding through METAL either. And the only augmented reality of METAL is, well, more METAL. Plus, METAL doesn’t blog about you how dumb you are.
 

That’s why large companies and brands like Exxon-Mobil, Miller Brewing, DeKalb, Harley-Davidson, Coca Cola, Marathon Oil, Red Bull, Jiffy Lube, Lee Jeans, and Circle K –- or small and midsize businesses like Deschutes Brewery, Speed Lube, Hoppe’s 9, and Huck’s Convenience Market –- have all found religion in the big bang of METAL.
 

Stout’s 123 years of expertise means it can handle jobs including:

 

We understand how it feels to be impacted by METAL –- like getting a karate chop from Chuck Norris -- and so do the hundreds of partner companies that have engaged Stout since our humble beginnings of beating criminals back in 1886.