04/06/2026
One of the Mid-South’s oldest family-owned firms has created a sweeping photographic and narrative volume, revealing how its people, innovations and grit help shape life in the region – 12 decades strong and going.
John Bouchard & Sons – Since 1900 is a richly illustrated chronicle, published by Grandin Hood, capturing 125 years of industrial craftsmanship, generational leadership and infrastructure development. In rich detail, the book depicts the company’s evolution from a small 1900 machine shop on Nashville’s Harrison Street to a fifth-generation, diversified enterprise serving thousands of industrial, municipal and commercial customers now, from five regional offices.
John Bouchard & Sons – Since 1900 is available for purchase online and in a number of local book stores.
This meaningful contribution to the historic record of America traces the JBS journey from John Bouchard’s 19th century immigrant dream story to the modern industrial projects of today. Rich with colorful characters and dangerous episodes, risks taken and loyalties held, the book offers a vivid display of the hard work that keeps mechanisms, and consequentially society, running through booms, wars, recessions, floods and generational shifts. The John Bouchard & Sons story ties together much of the region’s significant institutions and history – like unseen wires connecting circuits to power.
Walk a Nashville sidewalk or drive any street in the Mid-South, and there’s a good chance you will pass over manhole covers, valve boxes or drainage grates from the John Bouchard & Sons foundry. If you haven’t noticed them yet, you probably will now. These serve as an integral yet often unnoticed component of the region’s infrastructure.
If you had family members living in Nashville at any time since 1900, it’s a safe bet they drank clean water, rode in elevators, worked in fire sprinkler–protected offices or enjoyed air-conditioned hospitals, movie theaters and schools thanks to the work of Bouchard. As historian John Egerton said, “The family-owned business has helped mechanize the city.”
Readers are taken inside mechanical rooms, rooftops, foundries, fabrication floors and job sites where industrial tradespeople kept essential systems running – often without recognition but always with extraordinary skill (and usually humor). The book reveals how JBS infrastructure work has supported regional icons from Oak Ridge National Laboratory to Memphis International Airport, Redstone Arsenal to Vanderbilt Hospital and countless municipal utilities.
During the 2010 Nashville flood, for example, JBS crews rushed into action to keep NewsChannel 5 on air as rising water threatened to shut down live coverage. “They kept us broadcasting when the city needed us most,” one station manager recalled.
The firm has persevered for 125 years, through natural disasters, economic depressions and labor tensions. Twice – in 1941 and again in 1969 – new leaders in their relative youth had to take the helm unexpectedly. When the fourth generation of family leadership passed to the fifth in 2011, the torch-passing now held a greater light. John E. Bouchard, III’s personal transformation as a follower of Jesus Christ had brilliantly reshaped the company culture by faith, accountability and commitment to its people.
Today, JBS is enjoying the largest growth stretch in its history, buoyed by values of integrity, quality, service and family. Its nearly 200 employees, located in five offices across Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana, serve a varied base of enterprises in need of mechanical systems, skilled tradesmen, repair services and those iron castings. They attribute success to their great people, many who have been with the company for decades. From utility districts to cutting-edge manufacturers, hospitals to roadbuilders and Dollywood to Starbucks, customers across the spectrum of modern facilities continue to depend upon JBS “Building and Sustaining Hardworking Infrastructure” – as it has since 1900.
About John Bouchard & Sons
Begun in 1900 as a Nashville machine shop, the company incorporated in 1913. Today, as a fifth-generation, family-owned, diversified business it serves modern industry through four fully integrated divisions: Equipment Sales & Service, Foundry, Machine Services and Construction. For more information, visit https://jbouchard.com.
