Old factory in Kentucky

Wadsworth Electric Manufacturing Company, Covington Kentucky

Date added: April 24, 2023 Categories: Kentucky Industrial

Wadsworth Electric Manufacturing Company main facade, looking west (1993)

The Wadsworth Electric Manufacturing Company was instrumental in developing electrical safety switches from the company's inception in 1918 until at least the 1970s. During that time, the company had four locations. The first two have been demolished; the fourth is a 1972 industrial building located in the suburbs.

There were two major phases of innovation associated with the Wadsworth Electric Manufacturing Company: first, in the early twentieth century when it developed and refined electrical safety switches used nationwide; and again in the 1940s and '50s when the company was instrumental in developing and refining the next advancement in electricity, circuit breakers.

The Wadsworth Electric Manufacturing Company had its beginnings in the early 1900s. George 8. Wadsworth, for whom the company is named, was born in Campbell County, Kentucky, in 1872, one of 9 children of George W. and Margaret Wadsworth. He held a variety of jobs in the late 1890s, when he would have been in his mid-20s. In 1900, he is listed in City Directories of the period as an "electrician" with an address in Newport, Kentucky. In 1904, George Wadsworth formed a company, Wadsworth Brothers Electrical Contractors, with his brother Harry. This business was located on Madison Avenue in Covington.

In 1907, George Wadsworth received his first patent for an electrical safety switch. This was not a switch used to turn on electrical lights, but a switching device for controlling current at the point it enters an individual property. Because electricity is so commonplace today, it is perhaps difficult to comprehend just how important this breakthrough was. According to a 1927 newspaper account, Wadsworth's safety switch did several things: it reduced the possibility for accident and fire; and it reduced the possibility of theft of electrical current. Perhaps most important, however, this switch made it possible for homeowners to change their own fuses; before this invention, it was necessary to have the electric company send a representative to change fuses in the case of a power outage. Between 1907 and 1925, George Wadsworth received 16 patents; 14 were related to safety switches.

Wadsworth seems to have gotten involved with electricity fairly early; although electricity was invented in the late 1800s, it use did not become widespread until the tungsten filament bulb, which was more reliable than earlier incandescent bulbs, was perfected in 1907-1911. According to Roger Moss in Lighting for Historic Buildings, prior to 1907, new homes were fitted with both gas and electrical fixtures, reflecting the unreliability of electricity as a light source. Wadsworth's first patent was issued at about the same time.

Harry Wadsworth dropped out of the business in 1910, but George Wadsworth continued in the electrical business through 1916, always located on Madison Avenue in Covington. In 1918, the Wadsworth Electric Manufacturing Company was incorporated for the purpose of mass-producing Wadsworth's safety switch with George Wadsworth as a principal. At the time of incorporation, the company had 16 employees and was worth $100,000. The new company moved to 405 Madison Avenue, now the site of a parking lot. In January 1919, the Wadsworth Electric Manufacturing Company had outgrown its Madison Avenue property and moved to a four-story building at 18-22 West Pike Street; this building was later replaced by a c. 1925 commercial building.

The company continued to grow, both in terms of employees and production. In 1922, an announcement was made that the Wadsworth Electric Company was to build a new plant. The site that was chosen, Eleventh Street just west of Madison in Covington, was the former site of St. Elizabeth's Hospital. According to a newspaper account announcing the new building, in 1922 the company had 100 employees and gross business worth $1,500,000, 50 times that of its first year of operation. Despite its size, according to the article, the company was unable to fill 50 percent of the orders it received. This article also states that "Rulings governing electrical switches thruout [sic] the country now include the Wadsworth type of switch, and in some large cities, such as Boston, the Wadsworth type has the exclusive sale in the city." In late 1922, the Wadsworth Electric Manufacturing Company made its first foreign shipment of safety switches, which brought the company national notoriety.

The completion of Wadsworth's new facility was greeted by a full-page advertisement in The Kentucky Post on Friday, March 30, 1923. Most of the page was devoted to ads from the contractors that participated in the construction of the building. The majority of the materials and labor were supplied from the immediate Covington market. The ad lists George Lubrecht of Covington as the general contractor; he also supplied the architectural design, cement and concrete work, and carpenter work. Other advertisements celebrating the opening of the new building provide the following information about its construction: painting and decorating were done by Joe Kampsen of Covington; millwork was furnished by The Advance Millwork Company = of Covington; Taylor & Hayes of Covington did the brickwork; rugs and linoleum were ordered from The John R. Coppin Co., a Covington department store; stairs were built by Wissman Bros, Stair Builders, also of Covington, and so on. The advertisement included a photograph of the newly completed building, which shows it much as it appears today.

In 1925, George B. Wadsworth signed over exclusive rights to his 16 patents for electrical devices to a Cincinnati company for $800,000. After this date, Wadsworth apparently resigned from the company; his name no longer appears in city directories as an officer of the company. The Company, however, continued in business. George Wadsworth lived until the age of 82; he died in December 1954. Nothing is known of his activities for the period 1925-1954; no will has been found and his obituary simply mentioned that he had founded the Wadsworth Electric Manufacturing Company.

In 1927, David T. Wadsworth, a brother of George, was appointed vice president and chief engineer of the Wadsworth Electric Manufacturing Company. David Wadsworth joined the company in 1922; during his involvement with the company, he was responsible for a number of inventions and "was regarded as a national authority on many phases of the business." In 1934 he was presented by Kentucky Governor Happy Chandler with a bronze plaque commemorating his 50 years of service to the field of electricity. In late 1937, at the age of 67, David Wadsworth died unexpectedly. After his death, no members of the founding family were involved with the Wadsworth Electric Manufacturing Company.

The president of the company at the time of David Wadsworth's death was Joseph Feltman; he had been appointed president in 1926 after George Wadsworth's resignation. Feltman, a local banker, had in fact been involved with the company since at least 1922 when he purchased the land on which Wadsworth's new facility was built. Feltman was president for only about 10 years; however, he continued to own the land and lease it to the Wadsworth Electric Manufacturing Company until his death in 1945, when the company purchased it outright. Feltman's successor as president of Wadsworth was his son-in-law Leo G. Kuhlman. Leo Kuhlman continued as president of Wadsworth for 55 years, until 1981. During Leo Kuhlman's presidency, the company's growth and productivity continued. In the late 1940s, the Wadsworth Electric Manufacturing Company was a leader in the design and manufacture of circuit breakers. As a result, the company experienced growth in sales and personnel. To accommodate this growth, several additions were made to the building in 1956. A second-floor addition provided additional office space; rear concrete buildings provided additional manufacturing space. During the 1950s, Wadsworth employed 300 people.

Under the leadership of Leo Kuhlman, the Wadsworth Electric Manufacturing Company was apparently highly successful; it has been difficult to learn much about this period because the Kuhlmans are very private and operated the company accordingly. Wadsworth manufactured and sold electrical boxes, panels and switches, and seems never to have done much in the way of self-promotion and to have shunned publicity. The Wadsworth company did pay for modest advertisements in two local publications, souvenir programs from the city's sesqui-centennial in 1965 and the county's centennial in 1940. While other companies used ads in these publications as an opportunity to tout their wares or tell their histories, Wadsworth did not. No historic or contemporary biographies or histories contain any references to the Kuhlmans or, for that matter, George or David Wadsworth.

The Company prospered at least through 1972, when a decision was made to add additional manufacturing space. Because the Covington site was determined to be too small, a second plant was built in Erlanger, Kentucky. After Leo Kuhlman's departure from the company in 1982 and his subsequent death in 1984, his sons John and Joseph (who had been involved with the company since at least the 1940s) took over. The company continued to make breaker boxes, fuses, wiring ducts, power outlets, and all manner of electrical devices until December of 1990. At that time, a decision was made to liquidate the assets of the company and disband. The manufacturing facilities and offices were closed and the building placed on the market. It was purchased in early 1993 for use by a manufacturer of cardboard boxes, Packaging Un-Limited; the building is being rehabilitated by that company for its manufacturing facility.

Building Description

The Wadsworth Electric Company building is located at 22 West 11^th Street in Covington, Kentucky. It is an office/industrial building from the early twentieth century. The two-story building has a main block of wire-cut brick with adjoining wings and later additions.

The Wadsworth Electric Manufacturing Company occupied the building from its construction in 1923 until 1990. It is located on 11^th Street between Madison Avenue, the major north-south commercial street, and a complex of below-grade railroad tracks one-half block to the west. As a result, the building sits by itself, although it is located between a dense urban residential district and the city's main commercial area. One-half block to the east is the Seminary Square District, a residential neighborhood with a significant collection of the mid-nineteenth century Italianate, Queen Anne and Renaissance Revival townhouses. One-half block to the west is Madison Avenue, the principal commercial thoroughfare running north-south through Covington. The Wadsworth building seems physically removed from either of these districts due in part to the topography of the land and in part to the railroad tracks located to the west of the site.

From the front, the building appears to be rectangular, although it is irregular in plan. The main block of the building facing Eleventh Street is two stories tall and is finished in wire-cut red brick with stone trim. Stone coping delineates a parapet wall. The facade is divided into 11 bays; it is asymmetrical, with the entrance located in the third bay from the east. This entry bay projects both horizontally and vertically from the main facade, and the entrance is articulated by a neo-classically inspired stone pediment resting on a stone base and applied columns. The original entrance doors remain in place; they consist of two pairs of wooden doors with full lights flanking a fixed glass panel with a similar wood surround. An exterior staircase, which accommodates a change in grade from the street to the building, reinforces the entrance, as does the stone identification sign above the second-floor windows.

The remaining bays are set off by the use of the brick to create an arcaded effect. Each vertical bay is divided horizontally by stone sills to delineate the two floors of the building. Each bay contains two sets of paired five-part hopper windows with steel frames and sash. Many individual panes have been replaced with green or opaque plexiglass over the years, but overall the character of the facade has been maintained. The side elevations of the original portion of the structure feature similar detail.

The main block of the building is a high-ceilinged one-story manufacturing space. An addition to the second floor in the mid-1950s created additional office space; this portion of the building is faced in orange brick. It is not easily seen, and therefore does not detract from the historic character of the building. Over the years, a variety of concrete block additions have also been added to the building, first lengthening the original side elevations and later adding loading area to the center block. These additions were added throughout the life of the company.

The interior of the building is for the most part unfinished industrial space, with exposed mechanicals and support columns and concrete floors and walls. However, the main entrance leads off of 11^th Street into an entry foyer with a grand staircase. This area retains the original stair, centered in the foyer, with a switchback to either side. Also found in the main foyer, on the steps and at the second floor is original linoleum with the company's logo incorporated at the top of the stairs. Although there are a few places where the linoleum has been patched, it is basically intact.

At the second floor, office space on either side of the stairs features unpainted, stained woodwork at doors and windows and partition walls with glass on the top half of the partitions. The northern portion of this office space is a c. 1952 addition, and the finishes reflect this more recent construction. Beyond the main block of office space is additional unfinished manufacturing space.

The sides and rear of the original building are similar in design to the main facade, with large expanses of glass divided horizontally into hopper windows, brick arcades and stone coping. Additions, which are not visible from 11^th Street, are of concrete, brick or concrete block. Adjoining the main building are an assortment of small buildings also developed by The Wadsworth Electric. Manufacturing Company for additional manufacturing and storage space. A two-story mixed-use building at the corner of Madison and 11^th Street also part of the complex is of wire-cut brick and appears to date from the early twentieth century.