Our History

The O.F. Steffen Body Company was formed in 1914 by Otto Steffen, G Van Steenwyk and H. Vanderburg. The purpose of the company was the building and repair of truck bodies and auto springs.

During the beginning of the car and truck industry, the tires that they rode on were steel bands around wood rims. Every few hundred miles, the steel bands would wear out and need to be replaced. Also, because of the bad roads and the newness of technology of making car and truck springs the tempered steel springs were also subject to breaking. From this humble beginning, the Steffen-Van Steenwvk Co. entered the truck equipment industry. The next, and natural progression for the company to enter was the body building business.

In the early time of trucks all the buyer got was the bare chassis. This included the frame, engine, transmission and driveline components Everything else was custom built including the cab This work involved skilled woodworkers and craftsmen. But as time progressed, more and more customers wanted metal rather than wood bodies This was achieved by wrapping the woodwork in very thin (26-28 ga.) sheet metal

The Steffen-Van Steenwyk Body Company acclaim ran far and wide.

Sometime during the period of the early 1920's H. Vanderburg left the company for reasons unknown. Sometime in the early 1920's, a customer came to the Steffen Van-Steenwyk office to dispute billing and Mr. Van-Steenwyk invited him to "step outside" to resolve the dispute like gentlemen. In the process of resolving the dispute, Mr. Van-Steenwyk was shot and mortally wounded. The company was then renamed the O. F. Steffen Body Company.

During the time period of the late 1930's, Otto Steffen went into partnership with Mr. Wilson. While exactly what the partnership involved is not clear, but we do know that Steffen, feeling that straight truck bodies, and Wilson, feeling that trailer bodies were the way of the future, soon split up. Wilson formed the Wilson Trailer Company, one of the largest and successful livestock trailer companies to this day.

Steffen continued to redesign and build a combination farm body for straight trucks. The body was designed to carry not only livestock but also grains. This farm body became the mainstay and life-blood of the O. F. Steffen Body Company As production on the family farms grew and the farmer had more and more product to haul, sales of the Steffen Body flourished, with sales increasing every year. In 1958 Otto died leaving the company to his wife

In 1963 I. E. Kaplan bought the company and incorporated it under the laws of the State of Iowa under the name Steffen Inc. In 1963 Mr. Kaplan hired L. F. Kohl as president of Steffen. As Steffen's sales grew, so did the company until it occupied one square block in downtown Sioux City. Under Mr. Kohl's management, the company continued to grow until the late 1970's From the period of 1979 to 1985, Steffen's farm body production fell from approximately four hundred per year to twelve per year. Seeing the change in the industry, Steffen started to take the approach of truck repair rather than body manufacturing.

With the 1980's we saw many changes in the Framing Industry & the availability of hardwood lumber. The Steffen Combination Farm body was rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Our best estimates suggest that Steffen built about 20,000 combo farm bodies from 1960 to 1980, before 1960 who knows it is safe to say "a bunch".

Through the 1980's Steffen became an even stronger force in the manufacture and supply of Truck Equipment & Truck Bodies. For many years enjoying an unprecedented relationship with Iowa Public Service (the modern day Mid American Energy) building and supplying Trucks and Trailers. With the help of Lou Kohl, Adam Feiges and Dave Kaplan moved rapidly in several directions. Dave has built Steffen Midwest into the largest underwater tool supplier in the Untied States. Adam moved Steffen to bigger and better things becoming an up-fitter and manufacturer of Bucket Trucks and Aerial Lift Equipment. In this capacity Steffen became a distributor for Holan, Dur-a-lift, Versa-Lift & Tecco. Supplying & Manufacturing bucket Trucks for the cable TV & Utility Industries. It is in this same time frame that Dave & Adam developed a warehouse parts sales and delivery service with several branch locations.

In 1997 Mike Feathers was brought on board Steffen to over-see operations and bring new opportunities to the company. With increased emphasis on Dump Trucks Hydraulic Systems and re-visiting the sale of Used Trucks and Equipment Steffen continues today to be a leader in the Midwest in Trucks & Equipment for work. Today as in the past Steffen continues to have the ability to deal with adversity through diversity .