What Happened to Poulan Chainsaws?

The saw that came with the wood stove

For many families the Poulan arrived after the 1973 oil embargo, when a wood stove went into the den and firewood made sense again. A Micro 25 weighed about nine pounds, carried a ten-inch bar, and in 1979 was advertised at 79.95 dollars. Some owners never saw the Poulan name at all: the small saw on the Sears shelf in the mid-1970s came from Beaird-Poulan in Shreveport.

Near the front of the manual was a line in capital letters: THIS SAW INTENDED FOR OCCASIONAL USE ONLY. That line explains almost everything that happened next.

Where Poulan began

In 1944 Claude Poulan was supervising pulpwood cutting in East Texas. Big two-man saws needed a third man with a pry pole to stop the chain pinching, so Poulan hammered an old truck fender into a curved "bow guide" and the extra man was no longer needed. In 1946 he rented a 20-by-20-foot shed in Shreveport with 4,000 dollars. By the early 1950s he had a plant on Greenwood Road and a saw built entirely in-house.

The boom years

• 1959: Shreveport industrialist Charles Beaird buys the company. It becomes Beaird-Poulan.
• 1969-1971: the company designs a lightweight saw for "casual users".
• 1973: Emerson Electric of St. Louis, which also built Sears' Craftsman radial arm saws, buys Beaird-Poulan.
• 1977: the Micro 25 launches under 80 dollars, and a second plant opens in Nashville, Arkansas.
• 1977: Beaird-Poulan ranks first in light saws for occasional use, with 23 percent of the market.
• 1979: industry chain saw sales peak at nearly three million.

Why Poulan declined

The usual story says the saws got worse, or foreign owners stripped the company. The record shows something stranger: Poulan's biggest success built a market that could only be filled once.

A saw used a few times a year lasts. By 1983 American owners held about 22.5 million chain saws with a median life of eight to nine years. Industry sales fell 30 percent between 1980 and 1981, and by 1982 had dropped to 1.4 million. Second-time buyers wanted bigger 200 to 400 dollar saws, sold and serviced by dealers. That was the network Beaird-Poulan had leaned on least, because its volume ran through Sears and other mass retailers.

From 1973 Poulan was always a division inside a much larger company, and always the low-price brand. When a parent decided the low end did not pay, Poulan had little to fall back on.

Emerson, Electrolux, Husqvarna

Emerson sold Beaird-Poulan Weed Eater to Electrolux of Stockholm in 1986. Electrolux placed it beside Husqvarna, and in 2006 spun the outdoor business off as Husqvarna. In 2018 Husqvarna announced a gradual exit from low-price segments and brands. In July 2023 it said it was discontinuing the handheld production facility in Nashville, Arkansas, at One Poulan Drive. Fifteen years earlier, 1,400 people had worked on that site. An investment firm bought the property in 2024.

Poulan today

The Poulan Pro website still says "a tradition since 1946", with a Husqvarna copyright at the bottom and a brand-licensing page inviting other companies to use the name. If you own an old Micro 25 or Super 25, replacement chains and bars are still listed in current parts catalogues. Remember the fuel mix from the manual: half a pint of 16:1 two-stroke oil to a gallon of gasoline.