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History

Frank Buckner, the Chairman Emeritus of Buckner Barrels, knows the drum business inside and out. Frank literally started in this business at the “bottom of the barrel”. Fresh out of high school and newly married to his fifteen year old sweetheart Lillian, Frank went to work for our predecessor company in 1958 as a laborer, crawling inside of drums to clean them, cutting out liners, driving a truck, buffing labels, painting, running the old “PortCo Unit” and anything else that needed to be done.

Frank, born a poor dirt farmer, and Lillian, the daughter of a sharecropper, started saving and sacrificing immediately so that they could create a better future for themselves and their family. Through lots of hard work and a tremendous measure of faith, they bought the Company in 1975 and changed the name to Buckner Barrels & Drums. Under their continued leadership and with God’s blessings, the Company grew from a small facility with 5 employees and 2 trailers that processed 50 drums per day to a multi-location company with over 60 employees, 275 trailers, and volumes in excess of 2,500 containers per day.

In 2008, after fifty years of marriage and involvement in the drum business, Frank and Lillian placed the business under the control of current management. While our current managers look to the past to gain knowledge and wisdom, all eyes are on the future as we continue to serve our customers and grow our business.