The Company got off to a fast start in the early 1900's, prosperously marketing an oil-burning orchard heater, predominantly to California's freeze-threatened, but very profitable and widespread citrus industry. Successfully marketing orchard heaters for years, eventually the desire to expand, a rapidly changing economy, and international oil pricing necessitated effective thinking at the corporate level.

Today a leading producer of temporary portable space heating equipment, the firm's earliest beginnings date back to 1907 in Grand Junction, Colorado. It was there that W.C. Scheu, Grandfather of the company's current president, was tinkering with automotive parts and somehow found the answer to the needs of California's growers.

The young inventor was met by overwhelming success and, by 1920 he had purchased a former packing plant in Upland from which to distribute his increasingly popular heater. Manufactured by Scheu in a number of eastern locations and shipped by rail to California, the crop-saving oil burner would, for years, dominate agriculture throughout not only the county, but also much of the western United States.

In 1929 the founder's son, W.C. Scheu, became involved in the business and in 1944 took over as president. It was his decision in 1949 that his firm should manufacture its own products, thus bringing to an end the longtime relationship with American Can Company, which had been producing the heater in Toledo, Ohio.

Though the HY-LO and return stack heaters would sell well for many years to come, W.L. Scheu was already toying, in the early 1940s, with the mechanism that would carry his organization into the 1980s and beyond. Called the Salamander, for the lizard-type creature, which changes color to match its surroundings, the new heater was intended to provide warmth, thereby allowing construction crews to work in inclement weather.

With the introduction of the Salamander heater in the 1940s, sales spread across the nation, and by the 1950s, to Europe.

In 1951 Leland C. Scheu, grandson of the founder, joined the firm, followed closely in 1959 by Allyn Scheu, the other grandson of W.L. Scheu. With father and sons, Scheu's line of portable heaters was soon expanded to include liquid propane, forced-air, convection, natural gas, and infrared models- some capable of producing as much as 650,000 British thermal units.

The growing enterprises had added building space in 1948, 1951, and 1953. In 1962 Scheu bought out a longtime competitor, National Riverside Company, and in 1970 acquired California Orchard Heater Company. In 1967 Leland Scheu became president and Allyn Scheu, vice-president.

In 1976 Allyn Scheu, grandson of the founder, followed the family heritage and became its fourth president and his brother Leland was named chairman of the board of directors. Under their leadership, Scheu Manufacturing now has distributors in nearly every major city in the United States with major customers including Home Depot and Lowes. Heaviest sales are understandably in the eastern and northern states, but the heaters have also proven popular in such foreign countries as Australia, Chile, New Zealand and Argentina.

Leland and Allyn Scheu view the firm and its future with justified optimism and look ahead with anticipation to the opportunities that the future holds.