The Brand Story
Little Giant: An Oklahoma Plumber's Fix That Became a Pump Company
Oklahoma City, 1941. Long before central air conditioning was common, homes and businesses on the southern plains kept cool with evaporative coolers, boxes that pulled hot, dry air through wet pads. They worked, until the little pump that kept the pads wet gave out, which it did far too often. A local plumber named R.M. Wolfe, known to everyone as Doc, got tired of fixing the same failure. So he designed a better pump, and with fifteen employees he started a company to build it.
Chapter 1 · 1941
The Little Giant Vaporizer
Wolfe's company was called the Little Giant Vaporizer Company, and its first product, the Little Giant Vaporizer, is described as the first electric motor-driven submersible pump of its kind on the market. It sat in the water reservoir of an evaporative cooler and kept the pads soaked, quietly and reliably. The name fit: a small machine doing a big job.
The young company bought an aluminum die-casting machine in the 1940s and took on contract casting work to keep the shop busy. In 1950 it released an upgraded Vaporizer Pump for water recirculation, and in 1954 it introduced the C2 and C3 pumps, its entry into the condensate pump business. In 1958 came its first self-contained automatic condensate removal pump, built to carry water away from cooling coils where gravity could not. By the mid-1960s the company was advertising itself as the world's largest maker of condensate removers.
Chapter 2 · 1960s to 2004
Learning to move every kind of water
The company reorganized as Little Giant Corp., later known as Little Giant Pump Company, and over time it sold off side businesses in battery chargers and steam cleaners to focus entirely on pumping water. The product list that followed reads like a map of where water ends up in a building. Sump pumps arrived in 1963 and magnetic drive pumps in 1968. Sump, sewage and effluent pumps followed in 1980, then sewage basins, aquarium pumps, pool cover pumps in 1996, decorative outdoor water features in 1997, grinder pumps in 2000 and outdoor LED lighting in 2004.
Chapter 3 · 2006 to today
Joining Franklin Electric
By the mid-2000s Little Giant was owned by Tecumseh Products and employed about 350 people at two facilities in Oklahoma City. In 2006 Franklin Electric, a global maker of pumps, motors, drives and controls, agreed to buy the business for $121 million. In 2007 Little Giant Pump Co. was renamed Franklin Electric Water Transfer Systems, with Little Giant kept as the lead brand on its products, and Franklin Electric celebrated the brand's 75th anniversary in 2016.
The Lineup
What Little Giant builds today
Little Giant builds condensate pumps for HVAC, sump, sewage, effluent and utility pumps, pool cover pumps and outdoor water garden equipment. At HVAC365 the brand sits in our pool and spa range, mostly under cover, pond and sump pumps:
- Automatic pool cover pump: a 1,745 GPH pump with a 25-foot cord that switches on by itself to clear rainwater from the top of a pool cover before the weight can damage it.
- 6 Series sump and effluent pumps: a 1/3 HP cast iron manual sump pump rated to 46 GPM and 18 feet of head, and the 6EC effluent pump rated to 3,000 GPH.
- Small oil-filled submersible pump: a compact 115-volt utility pump for low-volume water removal.
- MDP-1 main drain pump: a 3/4 HP, 115-volt pump with a 1.3-inch female NPT connection, listed with our main drains.
All of these sit within our wider pool pumps collection. The common thread is the one Doc Wolfe started with: small, submersible pumps built to run in water for years without attention.
At a Glance
Little Giant by the numbers
- Founded
- 1941, Oklahoma City
- Founder
- R.M. "Doc" Wolfe
- First product
- Little Giant Vaporizer pump
- Parent company
- Franklin Electric, since 2006
- Acquisition price
- $121 million
- Product focus
- Condensate, sump, effluent and utility pumps
Questions
Frequently asked questions about Little Giant
Who owns Little Giant pumps?
Little Giant has been owned by Franklin Electric since 2006, when Franklin Electric agreed to buy it from Tecumseh Products for $121 million.
When was Little Giant founded?
Little Giant was founded in 1941 in Oklahoma City by R.M. "Doc" Wolfe, a plumber who designed a better pump for evaporative coolers.
What was the first Little Giant pump?
The first product was the Little Giant Vaporizer, a submersible electric pump that kept evaporative cooler pads wet.
When did Little Giant start making condensate pumps?
Little Giant entered the condensate pump business with its C2 and C3 pumps in 1954 and introduced its first self-contained automatic condensate removal pump in 1958.
What does an automatic pool cover pump do?
It sits on top of a pool cover and turns on when water collects, pumping rainwater off the cover so the weight does not stretch or damage it.
