When W.R. “Bill” Griffin began operations in Wilmore in the early 1980’s he was told the quarry wouldn’t be much good as a storage company unless he figured out some way of getting rid of that water in the back. Well, it took him a while to figure it out, but we think he came up with a pretty good idea – and we hope you agree.
In 1982 when Highbridge was just getting started it was a family operation. The “girls and Dad” would fill the gallon bottles – back then it was only gallon bottles, nothing else – then load the pickup truck. Daughters Linda and Mary would leave the quarry in High Bridge with the instructions from their Dad, “Don’t come back until you’ve sold all that water.”
At that time bottled water was unknown in Kentucky. There was a distilled product on the shelves of some stores for use in steam irons, but no stores were selling bottled drinking water. It took a brave store manager to put it on the shelf and certainly no one had home delivery back then so the stores were the only “big” customers.
In the early days Highbridge and especially the girls making the runs knew there were certain stores they could count on to take some of their drinking water. The funny thing is that we count several of those stores among our customers even today. The girls always knew they could count on Leonard and John Fitch at Fitch’s IGA in Wilmore to take “whatever was left on the pickup truck” when they were headed back to the quarry. Fitch’s IGA is still a good customer today. Laurel Grocery, one of the few independent wholesale grocery companies remaining, has been one of Highbridge’s strongest supporters for the full history of the company.
Over time the business grew to the point where today we count several thousand Kentuckians among our customers – homes, businesses and stores alike. But somehow it’s neat to know that some of those from the early days are still with us today. Highbridge is Kentucky Proud and Proud of Kentucky as well.