Carl Franz Bally

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Carl Franz Bally (October 24, 1821 – August 5, 1899) was a Swiss businessman who founded the Bally Shoe company in 1851.

Carl Franz Bally and his brother Fritz founded the shoe manufacturing firm "Bally & Co." in the basement of their family home in Schönenwerd in the Canton of Solothurn, Switzerland. In 1854, they moved operations to a small factory in the village but Fritz Bally left the fledgling business and Carl Franz Bally carried on alone under the corporate name "C.F. Bally." By the 1860s he was employing more than 500 people. Within another decade he had built an international reputation for quality and design and expanded operations outside of his native Switzerland to Buenos Aires (Argentina), Montevideo, (Uruguay) and Paris (France).

Carl Franz Bally died in Basel in 1899 and his sons took over the business.