“Welcome to the Home of Underground Construction.” Those words, emblazoned in orange and black, welcome all travelers on Interstate 35 to the town of Perry, Oklahoma, the home of Ditch Witch. As the Manufacturing Express rolled in, Perry rolled out the orange carpet, welcoming us to the Ditch Witch campus: a sprawling, million-square-foot facility dedicated to the manufacture of top-of-the-line trenchers, skid steers, augurs, and other utility equipment that form the backbone of America.
It wasn’t always like this. When Ed Malzahn took over the family blacksmithing shop in 1944, the process of electrifying rural Oklahoma was a tedious, pick-and-shovel business. As Ditch Witch General Manager (and Perry native) Kevin Smith tells it, Malzahn saw a neighbor hand-digging a trench and thought to himself: There must be a better way! After months in the shop, the Ditch Witch Power was born. In 1949, their first production trencher rolled off the assembly line; 75 years later, 75% of the world’s trenchers are Ditch Witch orange.
These machines don’t build themselves. 1,700 men and women work each and every day to manufacture this equipment. That’s over a third of the population of Perry, making Ditch Witch the area’s largest employer—by a country mile. And, as Ditch Witch has grown, so too has north-central Oklahoma. There are good jobs here—Oklahoma now sits in the top 10 of moved-to states—and it’s a result of the prosperity that companies like Ditch Witch offer to the people of Noble County and beyond.
America is made in Oklahoma. Touring the Ditch Witch campus, you can see workers shaping 90,000 lbs of steel into trenchers, directional drills, vacuum excavators, surface miners, skid steers and vibratory plows—the equipment that power people’s lives. 150 full-time welders work in three shifts to ensure production continues 24/7, manufacturing hundreds upon hundreds of orange machines with startling efficiency.
Today, the impact of Ditch Witch is everywhere. The machines, yes: in partnership with The Toro Company, Ditch Witch’s distribution network stretches across the country and the world. But Ditch Witch doesn’t just make machines; Ditch Witch makes the machines that make modern life possible. If you use the Internet, you rely on underground cables—which means you rely on Ditch Witch equipment. The electricity in your home? The water in your shower? Ditch Witch makes that happen, and they make it happen for millions of Americans each and every day.
Yes, the American Dream remains alive and well here in Cowboy Country—the orange-clad Oklahoma State Cowboys play Big 12 football just next door, in Stillwater—and Oklahomans are darn proud of the work they do on behalf of their community and their country. Take it from Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, who joined the AEM Manufacturing Express and the men and women of Ditch Witch to break ground on a brand-new 170,000 square-foot addition to the Ditch With Perry campus. “We want to make everything here in Oklahoma,” Governor Stitt said. “The American Dream is here.” Quite right: here in Perry, Ditch Witch is manufacturing prosperity, and they’re painting it orange.
