Bobrick was founded as Bobrick Chemical Company in 1906 by George Augustus Bobrick. At first they produced several products such as waxes, ammonia and then liquid soap. To publicize the liquid soap, Mr. Bobrick's son Arthur designed a soap dispenser.

The first bobrick liquid soap dispenser was received very well and the Pullman Car Company asked Bobrick to design a soap dispenser for the toilets in their trains. The 'pullman dispenser' was patented in 1912.

By 1920, the company had sold more than 250 000 different kinds of bobrick soap dispensers in the USA and published a catalog of 12 models. By the year 1941, Bobrick had already sold more than a million dispensers.

During the world war II the Bobrick company was helping in the war efforts by converting their factories to produce aircraft parts for Boeing, Douglas, Lockheed, Convair, Bendix and Northrop.

After the war Bobrick went back into producing soap dispensers and in 1961 expanded the catalog with stainless steel washroom cabinets that received much praise from the building industry.

By the year 1966 the catalog had grown to fill 24 pages and had 250 different bobrick washroom equipment products listed in it.

In 1986 a Bobrick introduced the Bobrick cast iron hand dryer.