The history of the Picard company started in Remscheid in1896 when the brothers Carl and Gustav Picard began to specialise in the trade of grinding stones. They had first rented quarries in the Eifel and the Palatinate Forest areas of Germany, in order to be able to produce their stones, and the Steinborn quarry in Schweinstal subsequently became their first in Rheinland Pfalz.
In the next generation of the family Alexander Picard took over the running the Schweinstal quarry in 1938 while his cousin Carl managed the grinding stone warehouse that had remained in Remscheid.
Two years later though the cousins parted ways after Alexander had resigned from the founding company in November 1940 and then subsequently converted his former branch of the original company into his own firm in 1941. In the following years he went on to expand the production of building stone before the workshop was finally connected to a permanent power supply in 1956, an important prerequisite for further modernisation. A mechanical processing of stone was further able to begin in 1965 following the introduction of gang and circular saws.
