3M was founded by John Dwan, Henry S. Bryan, Herman W. Cable, , William A, Dr. J. Danley Budd  and McGonagle in 1902. Their first office was located at Two Harbors, Minnesota. This company was supposed to be a mining and manufacturing business but fate has other plans for it.

Today, 3M is one of the biggest and innovative companies not only in the US but worldwide with over 75,000 products ranging from adhesives, abrasives, laminates, passive fire protection, dental products, electrical materials, electronic circuits, optical films etc,. They operate in 65 countries with 29 of these companies having manufacturing operations and the rest with their own laboratories.

Originally 3M was supposed to sell the mineral corumdum to companies from the East. Corundum was used to make grinding wheels but this did not generate enough sales so 3M ventured to other businesses such as producing sand paper.

At the beginning, 3M used anorthosite for sand paper production but consumers complained of the low quality so the company decided to import Spanish garnet and use this on the sand paper. However, using Spanish garnet did not improve the quality of the sand paper, 3M discovered that the olive oil used for packing the Spanish garnet has seeped thoroughly on the garnet thus making the stones fall off the sand paper so despite the change the company did not make any profits. But instead of declaring bankruptcy the founders decided to roast the stones and this resolved the problem with the sand paper.  This will also mark 3M’s first ever research and development.  And starting from this point forward, 3M has been guided consistently by science.