Wood-cased pencils made in Shelbyville, Tennessee since 1916
✅ American Manufacturing
Where Musgrave Pencil Company products are made
Shelbyville, Tennessee
Musgrave’s factory sits at 701 West Lane St in Shelbyville, in the industrial neighborhood near the old Bedford County Fairgrounds. The pencil-making steps the company installed in 1919 — grooving, shaping, painting and tipping — are still the steps that happen there today.
Slats in, pencils out
Musgrave stopped milling its own logs in the mid-twentieth century and now begins its process with the pencil slat. The company states plainly that no mills in the United States still cut pencil slats, so its slats originate overseas even when the wood was shipped there from the U.S.
Imprinting and custom work
Advertising and specialty imprinting has been part of the business since the Depression era, when Colonel Musgrave helped establish the imprinting trade in Shelbyville. Custom-printed pencils remain a critical part of what the factory produces.
Musgrave’s own sourcing page states: “We’ve been manufacturing pencils since 1916 right here in the USA” and that its pencils are made “with high-quality components sourced globally and domestically.” Because the wood slats are imported, we list Musgrave under American Manufacturing rather than an unqualified Made in USA claim — the pencils are manufactured in Tennessee, but not every input originates here.
The story
James Raford Musgrave — known locally as “the Colonel” — founded Musgrave Pencil Company in Shelbyville, Tennessee in 1916. He did not start out making pencils. Middle Tennessee had an abundant supply of Tennessee red cedar, the wood European pencil makers wanted, so he cut it into slats and shipped it to German manufacturers by way of the port of New Orleans.
His raw material came from an unusual trade. Musgrave would visit local farms and swap a modern wire fence for the farmer’s weathered cedar rail fence — the farmer got a better boundary, and Musgrave got cedar that had already air-dried to exactly the condition a pencil slat needs. He kept a fencing crew and trucks running for the purpose from 1916 to 1923.
World War I cut off the European trade, and in 1919 Musgrave turned to production. On a slat-selling trip he bartered slats for pencil machinery, brought it back to Shelbyville, hired a German mechanic he found in St. Louis, and started making finished pencils. When Tennessee red cedar began to run short in the mid-1920s, California incense cedar replaced it.
By the Depression the company was large enough to seed an entire local industry, and Governor Buford Ellington named Shelbyville “The Pencil City” in the late 1950s. The 1990s were harder: imported pencils flooded the market, most American pencil factories closed, and Musgrave went through layoffs and salary cuts. It is still there.
Why they matter
The pencil is one of the most completely offshored products in the American home. When imports arrived in volume in the 1990s, nearly every domestic pencil factory shut, and the supporting supply chain went with it — by Musgrave’s own account there is no longer a single mill in the United States cutting pencil slats.
Musgrave Pencil Company is one of the handful that did not close. That distinction matters more than a marketing claim: the grooving, shaping, painting and tipping machinery still runs in Shelbyville, and the jobs attached to it are still in Bedford County. A company that survived the wave that took out its entire peer group is worth paying attention to.
It is also refreshingly honest about what it cannot source. Rather than paper over the imported slat, Musgrave publishes a sourcing page saying components come “globally and domestically” and that it buys American “whenever possible.” That is the kind of disclosure that makes a Made in USA conversation useful instead of decorative.
Featured products
Browse Musgrave Pencil Company pencils and classroom packs available now in the Buy American store.
Frequently asked questions
Where are Musgrave pencils made?
At the company’s factory at 701 West Lane St in Shelbyville, Tennessee, where the pencils are grooved, shaped, painted and tipped.
How old is Musgrave Pencil Company?
It was founded in 1916 by James Raford Musgrave, which makes it one of the oldest surviving pencil manufacturers in the United States.
Are Musgrave pencils made entirely in the USA?
They are manufactured in Tennessee, but not from entirely domestic materials. Musgrave states that no U.S. mill still cuts pencil slats, so its slats originate overseas, while it sources other component parts domestically whenever possible. That is why we list the company under American Manufacturing.
Why is Shelbyville called “The Pencil City”?
Because Musgrave Pencil Company anchored a whole local industry. Governor Buford Ellington gave Shelbyville the name in the late 1950s in recognition of the company’s contribution to the pencil trade and to the local economy.