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1871 – ceased operations 1952 (the Businesses section carries the founding)
The founding, two accounts: the Businesses section carries the account from local history writing (Castaldi, Fort Wayne Magazine, May 2017) of a Fort Wayne founding in 1871 by Peters & Paul. A second strand, carried alongside the first by the ACGSI place pages, credits Dr. Theodore Horton with an 1871 washing-machine invention and a founding at Bluffton, Indiana. Both accounts are stated here as they stand in the sources; neither is smoothed into the other.
Course: The company's plant stood off West Main Street on Osage Street, in the Nebraska neighborhood. Production of mechanical ironers began in 1913. A bad fire struck the plant on 9 June 1917. By 1939 the company had bought the mangle patent. From 1945 to 1949 it ran a joint venture with Electrohome of Canada. Its inventive work continued into its last years: automatic-washer patents of Charles Brotman were assigned to Horton at Fort Wayne (U.S. Patent 2,526,002, filed 1944 and granted 1950; U.S. Patent 2,586,508, granted 1952).
Fate: The History Center's account is plain: the company "could not survive the competitive consumer market for laundry appliances after WWII and ceased operations in 1952." That closes the fate the Businesses section left open.
Sources:
- The History Center, post of 14 January 2021, via the ACGSI H-places page — the 1952 cessation and the plant's Osage Street location.
- Fort Wayne News, June 1917, via GenDisasters — the 9 June 1917 fire. University of Waterloo, Electrohome fonds (SCA207) — the 1945–49 joint venture.
- U.S. Patents 2,526,002 and 2,586,508 — the Brotman washer patents assigned to Horton at Fort Wayne.
- ACGSI Allen County place pages — the two founding accounts, stated side by side.