a mound of dirt over a recently excavated sewer pipe with the caption, "Why put a grave in your yard?" In 1939, after his Roto-Rooter sewer cleaning machine proved successful, Sam Blanc designed and built a smaller model that operated on the same principle but could clean and clear bathroom and kitchen sink drains as well as laundry drains and other household plumbing drains. Blanc also built a much larger version of the Roto-Rooter machine called the Roto-Rooter Royal. It had to be towed by a truck and featured a 10-horsepower gasoline engine and 1000 feet of steel cable. It was capable of cleaning large industrial and municipal sewer pipes. An improved version called "The Mainliner" was introduced in 1958 that could also thread telephone cable. It was discontinued in 1973. In 1980, the Blanc family sold Roto-Rooter Corporation to Cincinnati-based Chemed Corporation. Chemed began purchasing independent Roto-Rooter franchises and operating them as company-owned service locations under the newly formed Roto-Rooter Services Company, whose corporate headquarters is in downtown Cincinnati. Chemed sold off some of its holdings in Roto-Rooter in both 1984 and 1985, bringing its ownership stake to just below 60%, and launched a bid in 1996 to reacquire the 42% of shares that it had earlier sold off. In the 1980s, some Roto-Rooter franchises and company-owned locations began to offer around-the-clock service and general full-service plumbing repair for both residential and commercial customers. Today, Roto-Rooter's 24-hour plumbing services represent a major part of the company's business. The company has more than 600 service locations operating throughout North America that serve more than 90% of the U.S. population in all fifty states and more than 40% of the Canadian population. Roto-Rooter is the largest provider of plumbing repair and sewer & drain cleaning services in both countries. In 2009, Roto-Rooter introduced a book titled Chilling Tales From The Porcelain Seat which featured "true tales of the strange & unexplained things that happen and the Roto-Rooter Heroes that can fix them." Roto-Rooter asked its plumbers throughout North America to submit true stories about the odd things they have encountered on the job such as strange items recovered from toilets and sewer pipes. 2020 marked the company's 85th anniversary. International franchise operations have been established in Canada, Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, Brazil, South Africa and Australia. Corporate Identity Logos Original Logo For the first five years of Roto-Rooter's