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Generally clear. Low 67F. Winds light and variable.

David Tidwell, vice president of Southern Sheet Metal Works. 

The company originally began as Southern Cornice Works in the early 1900s. 

Kevin Lane works on the laser table.

 Logan Barnett uses the chop saw to cut material. 

David Tidwell, vice president of Southern Sheet Metal Works. 

Not many families can say they’ve operated the same company for over a century, but that’s exactly what the

Tidwell family has done with Southern Sheet Metal Works in Tulsa for 118 years. 

J.W. Tidwell started the company — originally called Southern Cornice Works — in 1904 near Second Street and Boulder Avenue, producing architectural and ornamental sheet metal for commercial buildings, explains David Tidwell, vice president and great grandson of founder J.W. Tidwell. 

The company originally began as Southern Cornice Works in the early 1900s. 

“With the oil boom in Oklahoma, we began to expand to metal fabrication for the oil industry, like oil tanks and water tanks,” he says, but Southern Sheet Metal Works continued to evolve along with manufacturing. With its biggest customers in the energy industry, the company also fabricates parts and materials for pipeline and glass companies, a multi-national chemical and environmental company and HVAC systems, as well as providing fabrication and mechanical service work for the health care industry.

It’s been important for the company to recognize where its strengths and weaknesses are, Tidwell says, and to be able to pivot when necessary. “To have that longevity of 118 years, you can’t just keep on doing the same things, you have to be able to evolve with the way the industry is going and what you see the needs are.”

Kevin Lane works on the laser table.

In 2011, the Tidwell family launched Southern Safe Rooms after the EF5 tornado ripped through Joplin, Missouri.

“In the aftermath of that tornado, we saw a need for a local company to be able to provide a safe room or storm shelter that’s able to withstand an EF5 tornado like that. That’s right in our wheelhouse of fabrication,” he says. “We could produce a product that’s unique and customizable.”

Twenty-five employees, some of whom have been with the company for decades, perform the work to create Southern Sheet Metal Works’ diversified products.

“We have a great employee base here. Some of our superintendents and foremen have been here for 30-plus years, their whole career. They started as apprentices and worked their way to journeymen and now foremen, superintendents, project managers,” he says. “Our employees are the lifeblood of the company.”

 Logan Barnett uses the chop saw to cut material. 

And Southern Sheet Metal Works isn’t just a family affair to the Tidwells.

“There are three families who have been multi-generational employees here as well — their grandfather worked here, their father worked here and now they work here. I think that speaks to the kind of culture we have here, the family atmosphere we have here,” he says.

The company is located at 1225 E. Second St.

“With the revitalization of downtown Tulsa and the Pearl District, we’re right in the middle of it all, and it’s exciting to see all the new developments,” he says. “Being in Tulsa, everything revolves around the oil and gas industry. As long as it’s here, we’ll keep serving that industry. As long as there’s development in Tulsa, we’ll be here.”

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