Pinkerton (detective agency) 1960s, even the word "detective" disappeared from the agency's letterhead. In 1999, the company was bought by Securitas AB, a Swedish security company, for $384 million, followed by the acquisition of longtime Pinkerton rival, the William J. Burns Detective Agency (founded in 1910), to create (as a division of the parent) Securitas Security Services USA. Pinkerton (detective agency) Pinkerton, founded as the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, is a private security guard and detective agency established in the United States by Scotsman Allan Pinkerton in 1850 and currently a subsidiary of Securitas AB. Pinkerton became famous when he claimed to have
Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency the early 1890s by William Gibbony Baldwin as the Baldwin Detective Agency. Baldwin, the senior member of the firm, was a native of Tazewell County, Virginia. An avid reader of detective novels in his youth, Baldwin was a small storekeeper in his early days. He then studied dentistry but left that profession to become a detective. He began his career in 1884 with the Eureka Detective Agency in Charleston, West Virginia. After founding the Baldwin Detective Agency, he then moved to Roanoke, Virginia, to oversee security operations in the Norfolk & Western Railway's coalfield district, later being appointed chief special