116 C DOTHAN & HOUSTON COUNTY – Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow
Baxley Blowpipe & Sheet Metal Works, 1949. Company president, Jerome Baxley, at the age of two, is seen standing on the cab of the truck.
B A X L E Y B LO W P I P E or over 65 years, Dothan-based Baxley Blowpipe has diligently worked behind the scenes for companies all over the world. If you’ve enjoyed a snack made at a Hershey, Mars, Tom’s or Planter’s Peanuts plant, you’ve enjoyed the fruits of Baxley Blowpipe’s labor. After working in the shipyards during World War II, Curtis Lee Baxley founded Baxley Blowpipe as a sheet metal shop and roofing company. The small, family owned operation started in 1946 with five to six guys, and now it has about 35 employees and serves customers across the globe. “Blowpipe” is a term for industrial ventilation, a lowpressure air system used to move something from one place to another. The name came from the cotton gin days when suction pipes moved cotton into a gin from a wagon. Now blowpipes are usually used to move waste material, such as peanut hulls and sawdust.
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Jerome Baxley, president and son of Curtis Baxley, credits some of his company’s success to diversification of services. Baxley Blowpipe offers metal fabrication to just about any specification a customer needs; laser and plasma tables; industrial ventilation; and powder coating.. The company even builds tanks from any material, up to100,000 gallons. These services may not always be the cheapest, but according to Baxley, the prices are always fair, and the quality work his company produces is always worth a little extra. Baxley Blowpipe has done work for companies including Hershey, M&M Mars, Tom’s Peanuts, Golden Peanut, Planter’s Peanuts, Universal Blanchers and several peanut plants in Canada. Combos snacks (a product of M&M Mars) all come through stainless steel spouts made by Baxley Blowpipe. All the peanuts used in M&M Mars candies go down a 55-foot spiral tube—Baxley Blowpipe’s trademark “Spiral