Royal Photo Company Royal Photo Company Louis Bramson established the Royal Photo View Company in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1904. In 1908, the company was renamed the Royal Photo Company. The Royal Photo Company focused on commercial photography and, unlike many other photographic businesses, did not operate a studio for portraits. Clients included Hillerich & Bradsby—makers of the Louisville Slugger baseball bat—and other businesses such as Southern Bell Telephone & Telegraph Company, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation, and the Kaufman-Straus department store. Stern Bramson (1912–1989), the son of Louis Bramson, joined the studio upon graduation from DuPont Manual High School in 1930 and remained
Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory for many years after, but the land was donated to the city in 2015 to be developed into a community space. From 1974 to 1996, Louisville Sluggers were actually made in Jeffersonville, Indiana, just across the Ohio River at a facility called Slugger Park, while H&B maintained corporate offices on Broadway in Louisville. Starting in the early 1990s, H&B CEO John A. "Jack" Hillerich III began looking to move production back to Louisville. Hillerich wanted to bring the factory back together with the business offices while also providing a place for the public to connect with the Louisville Slugger brand.