A.E. Wright and Sewer Cleaner
A.E. Wright was born June 11, 1887, in North Manchester and passed away in Nappanee in 1968. He married Ethel Harter on December 30, 1908, and they had two children, Harter and Maxine. Wright graduated from the Indiana College of Mortuary Science. A.E. Wright opened the Wright Funeral Home in 1921. (At one point, it was known as Wright-Yoder Funeral Home. Today, it is Thompson-Lengacher and Yoder Funeral Home). He owned the business for 44 years. He was involved in many organizations, including the following: Nappanee Masonic Temple, Hammond Shrine, Nappanee Royal Arch Masons, Eastern Star, Kiwanis Club, State Bank, town treasurer, city council member, Nappanee Utilities Company, and the Street and Sewer Commission. A.E. Wright also was the inventor of the sewer cleaning machine. He received a patent for a sewer machine in 1928. When he took it to the patent office, they told him no such machine was being manufactured. The machine removed roots and filth from Municipal sewers. It was also adjustable to any sewer size. Nappanee was the first city to use it for its sewer systems. The machine was made by Nappanee Iron Works. It was adjustable from 10 inches up to 29 inches and had five sets of double-cutting V-Shaped knives like a pair of scissors. You would pull it from one manhole to the next. Over 500 cities in 48 states and 5 countries ordered and used the device. With that, Mr. Wright created the Expanding Sewer Machine Company.
John Keller
John Keller moved to Van Wert, Ohio from Columbiana County, Ohio in 1885 and he learned his trade as a finished photographer. In 1886, he moved to Nappanee. He had a kind friend that loaned him $200 and that helped him purchase a photographer's outfit and set up a business for himself. Mr. Keller was Nappanee's first photographer and he started his business in 1888 at the corner of Main Street and Walnut Street. He is known for creating the Keller Albums. They are 324 photographs of Nappanee before 1900. He would have taken those photographs from 1888 to 1900. Mr. Keller had a "branch studio" in Bremen. He devoted Friday and Saturday of each week to it. When bicycles first came into existence Keller began manufacturing them in 1891. His bicycle was known as the "Nap" It had a wooden frame. He quit making bicycles when concerns about mass production increased. Mr. Keller then started to sell the Ariel Bicycle and had a repair shop. He participated in many bicycle races and would take trips to Columbiana County, Ohio from Nappanee which is a 750 miles round trip. In 1900, he advertised his photography studio for sale in a St. Louis and Canadian Photographer magazine. The 1900 census reported his occupation as a bicycle dealer. W.R. Carr was named as the successor to his photography business. In 1904, Mr. Keller announced the closing of his bowling alley, pool, and restaurant. He was entering the sporting goods business including fishing tackle, baseball supplies, motorcycles, and sewing machines and supplies. He built wheels for bicycles, made repairs of all kinds including light machinery. He was an agent for Cadillac Automobile. He sold seven Cadillacs, including his own, which was more than any other make in town. In 1916, Mr. Keller received a patent for a spark plugs tester. The apparatus was for electrical trouble on an automobile and stationary engines, which was met with the approval of all garage men who saw it. In 1919, he sold his home in Nappanee and moved to Franklin, Indiana, and eventually settled in Rochester. After moving to Rochester, he invented and manufactured Keller Lures. He opened Keller Inn on Lake Manitou and allegedly he was making and selling liquor during prohibition from 1920 to 1933.
Huffman's Bakery
Huffman’s Bakery was started in 1893 by Ogden Huffman. His son Roy Huffman took over the business in 1917 when his father passed away. When they moved into their fireproof building in 1919, it had a flour elevator from the basement to the sifter that was also weighed before entering the bread mixer. The oven has the capacity of 500 loaves every 40 minutes.Their bread delivery division started in 1920 when Roy Slagle and Edgar Pippenger became to peddle bread and pastries throughout the state. They were famous for their Mothers bread line.Roy passed away in 1934, his wife Bessie took over. She was truly a woman out of her time when it came to being a female in a management position.
Nappanee Telephone Company
The Nappanee Telephone Company started in 1898. The initial installation consisted of fifty two telephones with an ultimate capacity for a hundred telephones. ClaudeStoops led the way for this new innovation to Nappanee.The first switch board was installed in Mr. Stoops’ Jewelry Store and all the business was handled by one operator from 7:00 am – 9:00 pm. In 1916, the Telephone Company experienced rapid growth, 720 telephones were in service with over 12,000 feet of cable. There were also six operators, two lineman and they were able to give 24 hour service.
Frazier's Distemper
David Binkley purchased the drug store from Will F. Peddycord in 1885. Mr. Peddycord was his brother-in-law. The Binkley family moved to Nappanee in 1876 from Vermillion County, Illinois. Mr. Binkley was a druggist and established the Binkley Medical Company. Charles and Frank had a few encounters with the Food and Drugs Act for the Distemper Cure. It was said that it didn't comply with the Act and that the distemper was misbranded. The Frazier Family planned to patent and manufacture the distemper. They applied for a patent using the name Sulpho-Tri-Terpenes and arranged for bottling and labeling of it. They discovered the recipe was stolen by the Binkley's and was being sold as Frazier's Distemper Cure. The Binkley Medical Company created Frazier's Distemper Cure. It was a safe and sure cure for distemper, pinkeye, coughs, colds, influenza, and all forms of contagious diseases to which horses are subject. They started making it in 1885 with a small kettle. The remedy retailed at fifty cents and one dollar per bottle. All druggists and turf good dealers throughout the U.S. sold it, or it could have been obtained from manufacturers at Nappanee, IN. From 1885 to 1889, David Binkley conducted the business. His sons, Frank and Charles, continued after his death. In 1894, there was a report that Spohn Medical Company in Elkhart purchased the distemper cure from Mrs. Binkley, but her sons claimed that was false.
A.H. Kaufman and Company
In 1896, Amasa H. (A.H.) Kaufman and his brother-in-law J.I. Noris came from Lagrange to look for locations to open a store. They contracted one year for the Uline Room that had been vacated by the hardware stock. Mr. Uline overhauled the room, brightening it with new paper and paint, and rearranged some of the shelving. The store was ready for occupancy by February 15th of 1896.Mr. Kaufman was to have a stock that was peculiar to itself and he was said to be a pusher for business. People would learn what he intended to sell through the advertising channels.He opened his store on February 11, 1896, in the building where Lehman Furniture store was located. They occupied that building for 7 years.The business moved to the Hughes Building on the southwest corner of Main and Market Street.Mr. Kaufman was keenly interested in the growth and prosperity of Nappanee. In 1921, Mr. Kaufman admitted Frank Lehman as a partner and changed the name to A.H. Kaufman and Co. Mr. Kaufman passed away in 1923.In the early 1920s, the store moved to the location at 108 E. Market St. After Kaufman’s death, Frank Lehman shared equal parts of the business with Mrs. Kaufman.During the 1930s, the store increased the inventory of hardware, housewares, sporting goods, and paint while reducing the inventory of dry goods and related items.During the 1930s, J.O. Kantz and Frank Lehman developed a fishing lure called the Ypsi. The Ypsi brand lure was sold exclusively by Kaufman’s and was popular with many fishermen throughout the country. The lure was first manufactured for Kaufman’s in Ypsilanti, Michigan. When Ypsilanti Bait Company quit manufacturing the bait, Kaufman’s turned to the South Bend Bait Company.However, in the 1940s, the South Bend Bait Company notified them that they could no longer manufacture the bait. South Bend Bait Company began to manufacture a similar lure called Nip-I-Diddee. Kaufman’s sought legal advice and was told that the lure could not be patented and the South Bend Bait Company was free to manufacture the Nip-I-Diddee. Kaufman’s continued to find local manufacturers and marketed the lure well into the 1950s.Upon the death of Mrs. Kaufman in 1946, Charles Lehman (Frank’s son) purchased Mrs. Kaufman’s share of the business. On January 1, 1952 - the name of the business was changed from A.H. Kaufman and Company to Lehman’s Hardware. Lehman’s closed in 1971 and sold their inventory to the former Martin’s Hardware.
Price Hospital
In 1913 the Price doctors of Melvin (Delbert) and Willard decided to build a small building that would serve as an office and hospital. Their business had expanded very rapidly and the demand for surgery was so large.H.F. Frazier was the architect of the building and had been in charge of the construction of the building. It was one of the most modern and up-to-date physician’s office and hospital buildings at its time.Delbert and Willard practiced medicine together from 1900 to 1938. Willard’s son Douglas joined the practice in 1938. Douglas claimed he couldn’t practice medicine without an x-ray machine. Delbert objected and said that they could buy him out of the practice if they wanted an x-ray machine.Delbert went to open his own practice in his home. Douglas was called into war service in January 1941. Willard carried on the practice for two years without Douglas. The hospital reopened after Douglas came home from the war.The building has since been offices and even a book store. Now today the building is being used as a spa.
Coppes and the Lazy Susan
In the 1940s, Coppes designers developed the method of utilizing the wasted corner space with the concept of the Lazy Susan cabinet. The Lazy Susan concept had been around for many years as a rotating tray. It was advertised in the Vanity fair in 1917 as a revolving server or Lazy Susan. There was lore that Thomas Jefferson had invented a “dumbwaiter” aka the Lazy Susan for his daughter, Susan.With Hoosier cabinets’ popularity decreasing, the company transitioned away from Hoosier cabinets to creating built-in, modular cabinets, much like the standard cabinets we see in our kitchens today.Coppes Napanee is credited with being one of the first companies in the country to use this modular style that could be customized to fit a person’s needs. The cabinets could be designed with various choices in colors, handles, hinges and sizes. The company continued designing kitchens with modular cabinets. In the early 1940s, they noticed a problem. Placing cabinets in the corners of the kitchen created a dead space in one of the cabinets making it virtually useless.To solve this, designers created a pie-cut cabinet in the corner and inserted a Lazy Susan inside the cabinet. This 1942 design made this corner more usable and increasingly efficient. Inserting the Lazy Susan in the initial designs provided 18 cubic feet of usable space in an 11-inch door opening.The development of this corner cabinet design became extremely popular in the market when it was introduced and is featured in kitchens today. We may not think about it, but the design is an extremely inventive solution to a simple problem.
