Capehart Automatic Phonograph Corporation → Farnsworth Television & Radio Corporation (Capehart-Farnsworth)

1928 · Fort Wayne 1929 – 1956

Founded: Incorporated February 1928, Huntington, Indiana. Radiomuseum's Capehart history gives incorporation in February 1928 for the Capehart Automatic Phonograph Company, first series called Orchestrope; the contemporary Music Trade Review (January 1930) narrates the same start: Capehart arrived in Huntington in February 1928 with one hand-made Orchestrope, formed the Capehart Automatic Phonograph Corp. there in a five-room cottage with four assistants. Conflict flagged: Radiomuseum's summary table and the Museum of Broadcast Communications give a 1927 founding year (MBC: established the Automatic Phonograph Corporation in 1928, founder-president "1927 to 1932" in its garbled text). 1927 is carried as a pre-incorporation / idea year, not the incorporation date. Fort Wayne arrival: 15 June 1929 (the January 1930 Music Trade Review, a contemporary trade paper, states the move date and plant expressly; Hawfield agrees the operation moved to Fort Wayne the year after the 1928 Huntington start).

Founder: Homer Earl Capehart (born 6 June 1897, Algiers, Indiana) — (MBC; Radiomuseum). A former Holcomb & Hoke salesman who became a U.S. Senator from Indiana, 1944–1962. Philo T. Farnsworth is not a Capehart founder: he is the second founder-figure of this entry, whose Farnsworth Television & Radio Corporation bought Capehart a decade later (below).

What it did: The Orchestrope — an automatic phonograph / record changer that played 28 records, 56 selections, on both sides continuously and turned the records automatically — and luxury radio-phonographs under the Capehart and Amperion names, aimed at the expensive end of the market while competitors went cheap in the Depression (MBC).

Course (Capehart, Fort Wayne): The company moved on 15 June 1929 into its new plant on East Pontiac Street, Fort Wayne, built to carry five years' growth; by January 1930 ground had been broken at Thanksgiving to double the plant, twenty adjoining acres had been bought, and the trade paper projected $12,000,000 of product in 1930 — a projection, printed here as a projection, not a result (Music Trade Review, Jan 1930). A secondary jukebox history gives 300 workers and 25 machines a day for the 1929 factory — thin, single secondary source. Site conflict flagged: the inherited account from the Magnavox entry places a Capehart-Farnsworth plant on Bueter Road, designed by Alvin M. Strauss (ACGSI Magnavox page). Every Capehart / Farnsworth source worked places this company at 3700 / 3702 East Pontiac Street (Music Trade Review 1930; Radiomuseum address listing; News-Sentinel decade account: "3700 E. Pontiac St."). The Bueter Road note is therefore not used for this company's site; the two addresses are not merged, and the Bueter attribution remains an unresolved predecessor-occupant note on the Magnavox entry. Capehart himself left for the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company — Radiomuseum dates the move 1932, MBC gives his Wurlitzer vice-presidency 1933–1938; the year is flagged, the move is agreed. A record-breaking changer mechanism helped push the company toward bankruptcy (Radiomuseum).

Course (Farnsworth succession): Sale to Farnsworth, 1938/1939 — the transition is documented, the exact step-year conflicts and is flagged. MBC and the Indiana Historical Bureau blog give the sale of the company — "real estate, plants, factories … all patents … and trademarks" — in 1938, with Farnsworth's investors choosing the former Capehart plant in Fort Wayne and the plant opening in 1939; Radiomuseum gives bankruptcy in March 1939 and a Farnsworth purchase of parts of the company that month; Hawfield gives purchase in 1939, with record changers made until 1939. The entry therefore prints a 1938 sale / 1939 Fort Wayne opening transition, not one clean year. The new firm, Farnsworth Television & Radio Corporation (established at Fort Wayne in 1938; E. A. Nicholas as president, Philo T. Farnsworth as director of research), made Farnsworth, Capehart and Panamuse radios, phonographs and televisions at 3702 East Pontiac; Hawfield credits it with the first mass production of TV sets in the United States — carried as his claim, . In World War II the plants converted to armed-forces communications equipment, radar and missile-guidance work (1941–1946, Hawfield), and Farnsworth expanded to seven Indiana factories in the war years (Indiana Historical Bureau blog).

Fate: Absorbed by ITT; consumer line split off and sold; Fort Wayne site continued as ITT defence electronics, with an ITT year conflict flagged. The News-Sentinel decade account, Hawfield and MBC all date the sale of the Fort Wayne business to International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) to 1949; a Philo Farnsworth summary gives 1951 for ITT's purchase of Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation — flagged, not reconciled here (a 1949 agreement / 1951 closing would explain it, but no source in hand says so). The post-war Capehart-Farnsworth division never won a significant share against RCA, GE, Philco and Westinghouse; in 1954 the division was split, Farnsworth Electronics continuing as a wholly owned ITT subsidiary on the Fort Wayne defence / aerospace work (Farnsworth's Pontiac Street basement laboratory, "the cave"), and in 1956 the Capehart consumer manufacturing was sold to the Ben Gross Corporation — the Fort Wayne manufacturing properties were retained by ITT, the remaining assets sold, and "the Capehart name disappeared from the history of radio and television" (MBC). The former Farnsworth factory at 3702 East Pontiac was razed in 2010 (Farnsworth summary, single chain — carried at that weight).

Sources:

1. Music Trade Review, Vol. 89 No. 1, January 1930, p. 26, "Capehart Automatic Phonograph Corp. to Double Size of Fort Wayne Plant" (contemporary: Huntington arrival Feb 1928; cottage start; move 15 June 1929 to the East Pontiac plant; Thanksgiving ground-breaking to double it; $12M 1930 projection) — https://elibrary.arcade-museum.com/Music-Trade-Review/1930-89-1/26
2. Museum of Broadcast Communications, "Capehart Corporation" (born 1897; Automatic Phonograph Corp.; luxury-receiver strategy; Wurlitzer vice-presidency 1933–1938; 1938 sale to Farnsworth of plants, patents and trademarks; WWII conversion; ITT by 1949; 1954 split; 1956 Ben Gross sale; Fort Wayne properties retained by ITT) — https://www.museum.tv/radio-encyclopedia-2/capehart-corporation
3. Radiomuseum, Capehart Corp., Fort Wayne (founded 1927 in its summary — flagged above; incorporated Feb 1928 in its model history; bankruptcy March 1939 and Farnsworth takeover; 3702 E. Pontiac address; Farnsworth / Capehart / Panamuse trade names) — https://www.radiomuseum.org/dsp_hersteller_detail.cfm?company_id=2118?language_id=3
4. News-Sentinel, Hawfield magnet-wire / electronics account, 13 Dec 1993 (Capehart started in Huntington in 1928, moved to Fort Wayne the next year, record changers until purchased by Farnsworth Television Co. in 1939; Farnsworth's first U.S. mass production of TV sets claim; radar / missile-guidance work 1941–1946; ITT Aerospace bought Farnsworth in 1949) — http://egen.fortwayne.com/ns/projects/history/haw16.php
5. Indiana Historical Bureau blog, "Philo T. Farnsworth: Conversing with Einstein & Achieving Fusion in Fort Wayne" (investors selected the former Capehart plant in 1938; plant opened 1939; seven Indiana factories in WWII; war-loan struggle and sale to ITT) — https://blog.history.in.gov/philo-t-farnsworth-conversing-with-einstein-achieving-fusion-in-fort-wayne/
6. News-Sentinel decade account, 1950s (Farnsworth at 3700 E. Pontiac St. sold to ITT in 1949; refocused on defence and aerospace electronics) — http://egen.fortwayne.com/ns/projects/history/2000/1950/atom1.php