Western Type Foundry was founded in 1901 to compete with the conglomerate and near-monopoly, American Type Founders. In 1914 Western purchased the Advance Type Foundry in Chicago from Wiebking, Hardinge & Company, though even before this Robert Wiebking did most of the punch-cutting and matrix making for Western. Among the matrices that Wiebking for the foundry were his own designs for Farley, Perry, Artcraft, and Advertisers Gothic, a re-cutting of Caslon, and the original matrices for Bruce Rogers's deservedly famous Centaur typeface. The foundry was closed in 1919, transferring all of its equipment and holdings to Barnhart Brothers & Spindler in 1919.