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Ditch Witch is an American brand of underground construction equipment built by The Charles Machine Works, Inc., which has been in operation under the current name since 1949. The company is based in Perry, Oklahoma.
Ditch Witch machines started in the 1940s when a compact trenching machine was created to replace pick and shovel for installation of some residential services.
At present, the Ditch Witch line includes trenching units, vacuum excavators, tracking and locating electronics, directional drills, and compact utility machines.
History
In 1902, Carl Frederick Malzahn, a German immigrant seeking to escape the harsh winters of Minnesota, moved his family to Perry, Oklahoma, and opened a blacksmith shop with his sons, Charlie and Gus. The business prospered, and several years later, with the advent of an oil boom, it became Charlie’s Machine Shop, specializing in repairs for the nearby oil fields.
Ed Malzahn, Charlie’s son, learned from his elders the process of adapting a business to meet changing demand. In the late-1940s, he began to apply his mechanical engineering degree to a device that he believed would simplify the process of installing residential utility services—electric, gas, and plumbing lines—which at that time involved slow, tedious pick-and-shovel labor.
Working together, Ed and his father Charlie spent months in the family machine shop creating the prototype of the first compact trencher. They would call it the DWP, which stood for Ditch Witch Power.
The first commercial DWP was introduced in 1949. It was the first mechanized, compact service-line trencher developed for laying underground water lines between the street main and the house. Not only did the DWP solve an age-old problem for utility contractors of its day, but it also paved the way for the creation of the compact trencher industry and a more efficient way of installing all types of underground utilities: water, sewer, and gas lines, and telecom, CATV, and fiber-optic cables.
With the growing popularity of the Malzahns’ trencher, Charlie’s Machine Shop became The Charles Machine Works, Inc., which still maintains its headquarters in Perry, Oklahoma, a town of about 5,000 residents in the north-central part of the state. In addition to trenchers, the company today designs and manufactures a wide variety of underground construction equipment bearing the Ditch Witch name, including vibratory plows, horizontal directional drilling systems, pneumatic piercing tools, backhoes, electronic guidance and locating systems, drill pipe, downhole tools, vacuum excavation systems, pipe bursting systems, excavator-tool carriers, mini skid steers, and Zahn® power utility equipment.
Tiffany Sewell-Howard, Ed Malzahn’s granddaughter, became CEO of The Charles Machine Works, Inc., in 2005. Now in his mid-80s, founder Ed Malzahn still serves as company president and chairman of the board.
About the Company
The Perry, Oklahoma, headquarters of the Ditch Witch organization is on an expansive campus that contains the company’s 30-acre manufacturing plant and training, testing, research and product development facilities. Ditch Witch worldwide headquarters employs more than 1300 people.
The Ditch Witch organization distributes its products through a worldwide network of independent dealers extensively trained in the sales, service, and maintenance of Ditch Witch equipment. Most dealers also offer an inventory of replacement parts and accessories for Ditch Witch equipment, everything from drill pipe (for horizontal directional drills) to downhole tools (bits and backreamers) to digging systems (digging chains, teeth, and sprockets).
Ditch Witch products are an important part of the history of American industry. The Ditch Witch compact trencher has twice been named “one of the 100 best American-made products in the world” by Fortune magazine. In 2002, the DWP was designated a historical mechanical engineering landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). More recently, The Travel Channel recognized the company’s dedication to domestically manufactured products by featuring the Ditch Witch manufacturing facility on its program Made in America, hosted by John Ratzenberger.