Cowboy Charcoal

Cowboy Charcoal has over a hundred years of experience in charcoal, and the company prides itself on its history and the history of grilling over an open flame — from early man to the frontier cowboys.

What Cowboy Charcoal refers to as “Cowboy Cuisine” was invented on the western frontier. Cowhands with limited options would cook over fires developing the “hearty flavor and inviting aroma” that personifies the cowboy way of life.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Jess Rollins became known to his fellow residents of Southern Ohio as the community collier, a person who burns charcoal. During this period, farmers would bring the wood to designated pits to burn into charcoal upon clearing their land of trees for agricultural purposes.

Rollins was responsible for lighting and burning the farmers’ stacks of wood. The process of inspecting and cooling the stacks took weeks, but once the wood became charcoal, the farmers could sell it to local markets as cash crops.

Toward the end of the 1930s, Roland Crace developed a different approach from Rollins. Crace enlisted help from a local Ohio brick kiln operator and established a year-round scheduled production method of making charcoal.

In the early 1950s, brothers Don and Joe Crace ran a West Virginia plant when they decided to expand their business under the name Pioneer Charcoal. They went on to dominate the market in the Southeast. In the 1970s, Don and Joe started another business, Hickory Specialties, selling liquid smoke flavor and later briquets. Bob Evans Farms bought the company in 1992.

In 1992, Cowboy Charcoal was born and specialized in natural lump charcoal. For a decade, Don Case Jr. and Sam Crace produced and marketed their product to industrial, food service, wholesale, and retail accounts.

Today, Cowboy Charcoal is a subsidiary of Duraflame. A company committed to preserving Cowboy Charcoal’s brand while expanding its reach to barbecue enthusiasts nationwide. To help in this endeavor, POLA utilized SMS marketing, chatbots, Meta community management, social media content posts, and giveaways.

Our team used data-proven analytics and creative designs combined with Cowboy Charcoal’s heritage to deliver successful on-brand campaigns.