Our History

Our family owned business has a vested interest in serving the community where we live and work. We believe in families and neighbors serving neighbors.

Over 131 Years of Service

The business that is now Trimble Inc. was started on March 13, 1874, as "E. B. Knox, Picture Framing and Undertaking." Our founder, Edwin B. Knox, a pioneer undertaker and early mayor of Moline, began his business on Third Avenue (now Moline's River Drive) at about 18th Street, near the current site of the old post office building. He soon moved across the railroad tracks into a new building located on the site of the parking lot on the west side of 15th Street between Fourth and Fifth Avenues. He was reported to be the first businessman to move away from the "downtown business center" which was then located on Third Avenue.

In 1906, after Edwin Knox's son, Luther, had joined his father in business, they closed the picture framing and art supply portion of their business, relocated to a new building they built on Fifth Avenue and 18th Street across from today's Daily Dispatch building, and renamed the business E. B. Knox and Son. A final move to the funeral home's current location on Sixth Avenue and 21st Street occurred in 1923, with the purchase of the former Barber residence and its conversion into a funeral home, which they renamed Knox Funeral Home.

E. B. Knox died in 1926, and Luther continued to operate the funeral home until selling to Dorothy and Riley Trimble on July 1, 1945. The firm operated as Knox-Trimble Funeral Home until 1960, when it was renamed Trimble Funeral Home. Eric Trimble joined his parents in business in 1969, and became president of the firm upon his father's death in 1983. The firm has continued to expand, with the construction of the Coal Valley funeral home in 1977, and the acquisition of the Aledo funeral home in 1981. The Aledo funeral home was sold to long-time manager Annette Speer in 2003.

For the first time since 1906, the firm diversified into retail in 1985 when it acquired Julius Staack and Sons Florist, Moline's oldest floral shop, founded in 1877. In 1990, the shop, now Staack Florist and Event Planners, relocated to a new building near the Moline funeral home. In 1985, Wilson House Stationers was started as a division of the flower shop in Moline's oldest house. Trimble Inc. completed restoration of three 1870's buildings in the Historic Block on John Deere Commons in the Fall of 1999, and opened WaterMark Corners, a diversified retail store offering gifts, jewelry, antiques, children's books and toys, gourmet foods, bath products, and much more. Wilson House Stationers was relocated to the loft at WaterMark in 2004, and is now known as WaterMark Stationers.