January 2014
| Business World Magazine | 63
building featured on the cover of the In-
terlocking Fence Company Catalog from
back in the 1920s. Nyberg credits the ad-
vancement of post frame construction to
resource realities prompted by World War
II. To spare impact on resources such as
limber and other goods, the government
imposed dollar limits on how much farm-
ers could spend on construction. To save
resources, he says someone likely got the
idea that poles could be used to hold up
trusses and framing could be put around
it. The farmer could get the building he
needed and control costs too. In that era,
Henry Getz resolved to expand company
operations in the building niche. From
a start in corn cribs, Interlocking Fence
expanded into the “pole barn” as a major
aspect of the operations. Over a number
of years that followed, customers would
contract to have a Morton-style building
from Interlocking Fence Company. Oper-
ations ultimately transitioned to focus on
construction, thus leading to recognition
of the company simply as Morton Build-
ing. Nyberg says Henry Getz, now 93
years in age, continues to visit the office
almost every afternoon.
Though the family-friendly focus and
values of customer-service-commitment
have not changed with the changing of
years, the company’s market reach has
remarkably grown beyond the early farm
infrastructure for which this company be-
came famous. Nyberg has a theory as to
how that may have been accomplished. “I
think a farmer may have gone to church
gathering on a Sunday and heard some-
one talk about how the church needed a
new building, but wasn’t sure how to go
about building it or getting the money to
build it. He might have considered his
own machine shed and said, ‘I could fit
three hundred people in my shed if we
need to,’ and one thing led to the next.”
