G. A. Krause and Fredrick Hirth founded the company in 1883. Fredrick Hirth and Mr. Krause bought a small leather shop in Grand Rapids, Michigan, starting with a capital investment of $2,900. In 1901, they decided to build a plant in Rockford Michigan, just north of Grand Rapids. They purchased and expanded the Rogue River Electric Light and Power Company to power their new plant and the city of Rockford. In 1903, operations began and in 1908, a tannery followed. The company now processed its own raw materials and manufactured its own shoes sold through the Hirth-Krause Company. In 1921, the company changed its name to Wolverine Shoe and Tanning Corporation. From 1916-1923, its earnings increased 700%. In 1941, during World War II, the Wolverine Shoe and Tanning Company began to work for the U.S. Navy, developing pigskin gloves and inventing what later became known as pigskin suede.
Name change and expansion (1960 to 1989)
In 1964, the company changed its name to Wolverine World Wide, Inc. and in 1965 became a publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Hush Puppies, a casual footwear brand founded by the company in 1958, quickly rose to popularity in the 1960s.
Growth and Acquisitions (1990 to 2009)
In 1994, Wolverine World Wide introduced Cat Footwear, a licensed brand of shoes using the Caterpillar Inc. name. In 1995, the Council of Fashion Designers of America voted Hush Puppies as Fashion Accessory of the Year. In 1997, the company continued expanding by purchasing the Merrell brand. In 1998 Wolverine World Wide acquired the global license for footwear from the Harley-Davidson Motor Company. Wolverine World Wide acquisitions in the 2000s included the 2003 purchase of Sebago and 2009 purchases of Chaco and the UK-based brand Cushe. The company discontinued the Cushe brand in 2015 and sold Sebago to Italian publicly-traded company BasicNet in 2017. In 2006 Wolverine World Wide entered into a global footwear licensing deal with Patagonia. The company stopped production of Patagonia footwear in 2014.
Present day
Wolverine World Wide nearly doubled in size after its 2012 acquisition of the Performance Lifestyle Group of Collective Brands, which added Saucony, Keds, Stride Rite and Sperry Top-Sider brands to its portfolio. In 2017 the company sold its United States Department of Defense footwear business along with a factory in Big Rapids, Michigan to Tennessee-based footwear manufacturer Original Footwear. In the same year Wolverine World Wide converted Stride Rite to a licensed brand operated by New York City-based Vida Shoes International. The company is based out of corporate offices in Rockford, Michigan and Waltham, Massachusetts. Wolverine World Wide also operates three distribution centers in the U.S., one in Canada and one in the Netherlands. As of December 29, 2018, Wolverine World Wide operated 80 retail stores in the U.S. and Canada and 42 consumer-direct eCommerce sites. According to the company's 2018 annual report, "substantially all of the units sourced by the Company are procured from numerous third-party manufacturers in the Asia Pacific region. The Company maintains offices in the Asia Pacific region to develop and facilitate sourcing strategies." Wolverine World Wide had various PFAs dumpsites throughout Belmont and Rockford that poisoned the drinking water of residents. These sites poisoned the water for hundreds of residents and have been linked to various negative health effects, including cancer. In 2019, Wolverine World Wide reorganized into two operating segments:
Wolverine Michigan Group whose brands include Bates, Cat footwear, Chaco, Harley-Davidson footwear, Hush Puppies, HyTest, Merrell and Wolverine
Wolverine Boston Group whose brands include Keds, Saucony, Sperry Top-Sider, the Stride Rite licensed business and the kids footwear businesses of Cat, Hush Puppies, Keds, Merrell, Saucony and Sperry
