Our Story

One could say that Knit-Rite’s story actually began during the courtship between company founder W.E. (Billy) Isle and his future wife Anna Coen. Billy was a brakeman working on the Santa Fe Railroad stationed in Marceline, Missouri. After spending a 4th of July holiday visiting Anna, Billy boarded a train to return to Marceline. He said his goodbyes and hopped on the slow-moving train just as Anna called to him. Stepping back down to better hear her, he slipped and fell and the train rolled over his foot resulting in amputation.

During the next few months, Billy’s life changed a great deal. After his amputation healed, he was fitted with his first prosthesis. The prosthesis led him to his new career as an apprentice at the Fit-Well Artificial Limb Company in Kansas City, Mo. Finally, he and Anna were married.

When the world was in the throws of the first World War, Billy was working for a prosthetics company, the J.F. Rowley Company, as the Kansas City branch manager. He and Anna had had three daughters. The French Red Cross reached out to Billy for help in caring for the hundreds of war amputees. Billy was an obvious choice to help. He was a born leader and a natural organizer. But, for Billy, it meant leaving Anna and his daughters behind.

After much thought, Billy decided to go. Upon arrival he began working with French officials. Right away, Billy was able to activate a prosthetic facility. His expertise and efficiency soon got more attention. The British government was the next to come calling. From the ground up, Billy opened a new facility for producing hundreds of prostheses each month. It was there that he spent the rest of the war, working tirelessly to make prostheses.

When the war ended, Billy returned to the United States and resigned from the Rowley company. He applied his expertise around the United States and Canada beginning prosthetic facilities in several locations. After a couple of years, Billy decided it was time to come home to Kansas City, buying the Rowley facility located in Kansas City.

Over the next three years, Billy and Anna worked together to build up the new W.E. Isle Company, a retail prosthetics company. Simultaneously, Billy and Anna began producing amputee socks to go with the prostheses. This side business really took off, leading to the founding of the Knit-Rite company in 1923. Anna became Knit-Rite’s first salesperson, traveling all over the United State by car.

The first major challenge that Knit-Rite faced was the Great Depression, which caused the new business to struggle. Billy and Anna were determined to keep the company afloat, and therefore sold their house and moved into the Knit-Rite production facilities. They had a loyal staff of 15 that continued working for the company during the tough times, sometimes even accepting a postponed payday. One dedicated employee that worked for the Isles during this time was a fellow amputee, Ted Smith, who managed Knit-Rite’s sales. Under the strong direction of the Isles and Ted Smith, the company survived and even thrived as it moved into the 1940s.

Over the next two decades the company grew and changed under a partnership between the Isle daughters and Ted Smith, becoming a major broad-line distributor. Ted Smith’s son Bill Smith started working with the company in 1951 at the age of 14.

By the early 1970s, Bill Smith had acquired a majority interest. The 1970s was an exciting time in textile production, as it became automated. Knit-Rite was at the forefront of this innovation, further expanding distribution of prosthetic socks. It was during this time that the third generation of Smiths, Bill’s son Mark, came to work at Knit-Rite, also at the age of 14. Mark worked in various departments at Knit-Rite throughout the 1980s, while also completing training in orthotics and prosthetics and becoming a certified prosthetist. Mark briefly left Knit-Rite working in a private O&P retail facility in Portland, Oregon, before returning to Knit-Rite in 1991.

A new ownership group led by Perry Bacon purchased Knit-Rite from the Smith family in February 1992. Under the new ownership, Knit-Rite continued its tradition of expanding and growing, now acquiring competitor companies, Accurate Knitting and Sterling Prosthetic Sock Division of Ohio Willow Wood. Although no longer owning the company, the Smith family was still an integral part with Mark’s brother, Ted working to improve production flow processes, the ERP system for scheduling and fulfillment.

By the late 1990s, Knit-Rite moved its headquarters to the current facility—a newer, larger, and more modern facility. Mark Smith repurchased the company from the Perry Bacon group and gathered a team with proven experience to move Knit-Rite into the 21st century.

Under the Mark Smith led team, Knit-Rite expanded into other medical textiles. The first pivotal addition to the product line was the introduction of SmartKnit seamless diabetic socks. The expansions continued with the acquisition of Therafirm Compression products, a line of medical compression, and Seamless Creations, a seamless athletic sock.

The acquisition of Therafirm, which has a unique history of its own, was the biggest addition to the company since its early days. Therafirm dates back to the mid-1950s when the Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Company developed one of the first gradient compression stockings to be marketed in the United States. When physicians began to recognize the healthy benefits of compression hosiery, the demand for compression grew. Parke-Davis opened a manufacturing facility in Asheboro, North Carolina to produce compression hosiery.

In the 1980s Parke-Davis Support Hosiery became Therafirm Support Hosiery. In 1990 the company was purchased by Charles Schoolcraft, a long-time employee of Parke-Davis, but continued to manufacture in Parke-Davis’ Asheboro facility until 1996. Then, Schoolcraft opened up Therafirm’s own facility in Ellerbe, North Carolina. In 2000, Therafirm was purchased by Knit-Rite.

The Knit-Rite team took the Therafirm compression hosiery product and expanded it to include the Core-Spun, Ease, Core-Sport, TheraSport, and Preggers lines, creating compression hosiery in casual, premium, athletic, and maternity lines. In 2013, a state-of-the-art new facility was opened in Hamlet, North Carolina to produce the expanded Therafirm compression line.

In 2021, Knit-Rite was purchased by the Thuasne Group, a global manufacturer of medical devices headquartered in France. Becoming part of the Thuasne family opens Knit-Rite and its various product lines to new markets across the globe. Joining with Thuasne USA facilities in Bakersfield, California and Indianapolis, Indiana, Knit-Rite is now part of the Thuasne USA division of Thuasne, with Knit-Rite becoming the USA headquarters.