For lack of a bearing, Kansas got settled. And, years later, because of a bearing — and other mechanical innovations — a Kansas couple opened an industrial supply company in Kansas City in 1949.

Stephen R. Cloud, company president and son of IBT founders the late Forrest L. and Bonnie Cloud, was at IBT’s Emporia store Thursday to call on the local office’s major manufacturing customers and to treat employees to a celebratory dinner to recognize the company’s 60 years in business.

The mom-and-pop business begun by his parents has grown to encompass a territory that covers a total of 42 stores in Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, Illinios, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas.

“We have more branches in Kansas than any other state,” Cloud said.

IBT opened its store here March 15, 1977, at 1925 W. Sixth Ave., then moved across the street to 1923 W. Sixth Ave. in July last year.

IBT sells industrial maintenance supplies such as electric motors, bearings, conveyor belting, safety equipment and fluid power systems for manufacturing, agriculture, dry and wet pet food production and aggregate plants, according to information from the company.

Stephen Cloud joined IBT full-time in 1972. He served three terms in the Kansas Legislature and has been closely involved in the Department of Commerce’s Kansas Cavalry and the Kansas Chamber of Commerce.

Rolling a bearing around in his hands, Cloud talked about the lack of ball bearings as one of the reasons Kansas was settled. The rough and endless rolling of the iron shaft through the wooden wagon wheels limited the distance covered wagons could travel without needing repairs and replacements. Staying in Kansas, with its lush prairies and plentiful wildlife, may have seemed a better option than replacing broken wheels.

Bearings changed all that and gave wheels the freedom to roll farther, faster and without large teams of oxen or horses to pull them.

Cloud said that in St. Louis, a trash hauler was brought into court on charges of animal cruelty when witnesses saw a team of horses pulling a heavy trash load down St. Louis streets. The man had tried a new invention — bearings — on his wheels and found that two work horses could pull a load that previously had required eight animals. Consequently, his two-horse team appeared to be suffering from abuse.

The man eventually was acquitted, Cloud said, when the bearing salesman from Timken, testified about the invention and the judge went out to observe for himself the effect that bearings had on ease of turning wheels and pulling loads.

“The horses just took off,” Cloud said. “That cut the friction by a ratio of 100 to 1.”

Timken, of course, went on to become the leading bearing manufacturing company in the nation.

“To this day, they are absolutely without question the leader,” Cloud said. “The legend is the guy that really invented the tapered wheel bearing was Henry Ford.”

Ford was a friend of Henry Timken, Cloud said, and apparently passed the invention on to Timken so he could devote time to manufacturing automobiles.

Cloud pulled out a ball bearing from his wallet. Used in airplanes, the bearing is one of the tiniest made, with a 1/64th inner race diameter and a 1/32nd outer race diameter.

The miniscule, but expensive, bearing illustrated the evolution of that basic invention and simultaneously illustrated why tidy storerooms are a priority at IBT, with its endless boxes, hoses and loose parts that all must be accounted for and found at a moment’s notice.

“If you’re not neat and tidy, you can’t find ’em and if you can’t find ’em, you can’t sell ’em,” Cloud explained.

IBT is a full-service industrial distributor that represents more than 5,000 suppliers and stocks approximately 330,000 different items. Power transmissions and hydraulic hoses, industrial safety supplies, hair nets, helmets, hearing protection, barrels of food-grade oil, fittings, couplers, electric motors, air filters, harnesses for working at heights are only a small part of the merchandise kept in stock for customers.

Business has dropped off a bit since the recession deepened, Cloud said, but the slowdown has been minor, compared to business in other parts of the country.

“We’re blessed to be in the Midwest, where business is stronger than some locations,” Cloud said.

Food producers — including pet foods — and agribusiness constitute a majority of IBT’s customer base.

“And that’s kind of been our saving grace,” he said. “People have to eat. They’re going to eat.”

In addition to the industrial customers, individual farmers in the area come to IBT for plow bearings, belts, hydraulic hoses and other equipment that keeps farm machinery running.

“Obviously we do more here and in Garden City, Dodge City and Liberal,” Cloud said of the farm traffic.

IBT has survived and expanded by offering different types of products and services to its customers instead of remaining stagnant. One of those services is installing an IBT-run storeroom inside some manufacturing locations.

“We’ll go in and manage a storeroom,” Cloud said. “There’s a lot of manufacturers figuring out they do a really good job manufacturing but not a really good job managing a storeroom.”

IBT also offers a variety of training classes so employers can keep their employees trained in services as well as in safety.

The company does on-site training and also produces its own video training courses.

And, Cloud said, IBT’s own policy of hiring good employees and training them well has been a business practice that’s contributed to the company’s own success.

“We’re a recognized leader for training our people,” Cloud said. “There’s no school out there where you can go take Ball Bearings 101.”

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