Question: What major mattress brand was named after the Texas town where its founder lived?
Answer: Sealy. In 1881, Sealy resident Daniel Haynes, a cotton gin builder, began making cotton-filled mattresses for his friends and neighbors. Eight years later, he patented a process for compressing the cotton used in the mattresses, and he licensed the patent to manufacturers in other markets.
Mattresses produced using the patent were labeled “Mattresses from Sealy.” Sealy nearly went bankrupt during the Great Depression but emerged to become one of the nation’s leading mattress manufacturers. Today, Sealy is headquartered in High Point, North Carolina.
