Virginian Lane Company Two Tier Cedar Extendable Table. Mid century modern design. Company label and information seared into the underside. 

Size (Extended): 80 x 29 x 14 1/2 in. 

Folded: 51 1/2 x 20 x 14 1/2 in. 

Altavista, Virginia was founded by several members of the Lane family in 1907. In 1912 a small box company in town experiencing financial difficulty was purchased at auction for $500 by John Lane, who put his son Edward Hudson in charge of the manufacturing facility. It was incorporated as the Standard Red Cedar Chest Company with John as the President and Edward as the General Manager, and Edward’s woodworking professor from Virginia Polytechnic Institute as the head designer and overseer. Their first major success was being contracted by the United States government to transition the factory from cedar chests to ammunition boxes for the war effort in World War I, and in 1922 the company’s name was changed to the Lane Company. Their furniture gradually became geared to more “feminine” audiences, with celebrities like Shirley Temple and four Miss America’s in a row endorsing them. The Lane miniature cedar chest became one of the most common gifts given to young girls on their high school graduation day, with over seven million distributed by 1960. The Lane Company expanded from cedar chests to other lines of furniture in the 1950s through the 70s, but shifting tastes and economic woes began to drag the company under. They were acquired by the Heritage Home Group in 1980, along with other well-known furniture brands like Henredon, Drexel, Broyhill, and Thomasville. The miniature department of the factory was closed around 1998, and around 2022 the last company to own the Lane cedar chest business declared bankruptcy. The last remaining vestige of the company is the tall smokestack of the former factory, which proudly reads “Lane Cabinets,” and the town of Altavista has shrunk to under 3,300 residents due to the industrial and economic blight caused by the devastation of the century-old family-run business.