Fort Wayne Founders and CEOs: The People Who Built Its Companies

Speed

The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.

John B. and Amelia Franke House, 2131 Forest Park Blvd., Fort Wayne, Indiana — front elevation Marsh Davis; Indiana Landmarks · CC BY 4.0 · source file

Founders & Chief Executives · The people who started Fort Wayne's companies, and the chief executives it produced

Fort Wayne's business history is usually told as a history of firms — the pump works, the wire mills, the knitting mills, the insurers. This section tells it as a history of people. Some of them are already profiled in the People sections: Samuel Hanna, Allen Hamilton, John H. Bass, Theodore Thieme, Homer Capehart, S. F. Bowser, George Jacobs and the Jenneys, Fred Zollner and Dale McMillen, Daniel Ninde and Charles Bash. The founders gathered here are the ones the Business record named and the People record never took up — the fur trader who built the first permanent store, the packers, the candy men, the scrap dealer's son who became a steel founder, the neighbours who started a luggage company on a ping-pong table. After them come the chief executives: the ones who came here to run the city's great companies, and the ones the city raised and sent out to run companies elsewhere. The modern layer is stated as the dated press and company record gives it, and the last entry sweeps the record for the women and Black founders the standard rosters tend to miss — including, where the search came back thin, a plain statement of that.

Francis Comparet — the first store on Columbia Street

arrived 1818 · the canal era

Fort Wayne's business record opens with a fur trader: Francis Comparet came up the Maumee to Fort Wayne in 1818 and built one of the town's first permanent trading establishments — a brick residence with an adjoining store and…

The first storekeepers — Suttenfield, Ewing, Henderson, Bourie, Holcomb & Marquis, Coles

1823 – 1834

The town's first businesses were kept by men the record mostly knows by a licence or a single account: William Suttenfield held one of the first tavern licences — the Barr-and-Columbia marker dates the Suttenfield Tavern 1823.…

Noble G. Olds and Henry G. Olds — wagon wheels for a continent

settled 1861 · works organised 1881

The Olds fortune began with a carpenter: Noble G. Olds, a carpenter and machinist, settled in Fort Wayne in 1861 and established the family's lumber yard, machine works and wagon-wheel making. His son Henry G. Olds (1839–1902)…

Kerr Murray — the foundryman

established 1862

Kerr Murray was a Scottish-born machinist who established his foundry and machine business in Fort Wayne in 1862 — trading as Murray & Bennigan by the fall of 1863 and Murray & Baker by 1872. He died soon after the firm began building gas works, and his son-in-law A. D. Cressler carried it on, standing as president and general manager when the Kerr Murray Manufacturing Company incorporated in 1881 with $100,000 capital. A receiver was appointed on 27 May 1912. Murray's documented record is the founding itself; the works' course is the Business section's.

Sources:

Businesses — "Kerr Murray Manufacturing Company" (the 1862 establishment, the partnership names, Cressler's succession, the 1881 incorporation and the 1912 receivership).

Henry C. Paul and Samuel M. Foster — the organisers

1871 · 1886 · 1905

Some founders are remembered as the second name on the charter: Henry C. Paul co-founded the Horton Manufacturing Company in 1871 with John Claus Peters — Peters is profiled in the People sections; Paul is not — and Horton built…

Gideon Webster Seavey — the hardware house

14 February 1848 – 13 March 1893

Gideon Webster Seavey was born in Lee County, Illinois, on 14 February 1848, and headed the Seavey Hardware Company of Fort Wayne until his death on 13 March 1893 — by then, in the words of his Griswold biographical sketch, "one of the oldest and largest hardware establishments of northern Indiana." The company reorganised effective 1 February 1914 with his son Walter R. Seavey as manager. The house itself was founded on 5 October 1881 — a date the Business section now carries as fixed, from the spring-1914 newspaper account of the company's reorganization quoted in full in Griswold's 1917 sketch of Seavey.

Sources:

Businesses — "Seavey Hardware Company" (the Griswold, Vol. II, biographical sketch — birth, death, the standing of the house; the 1914 reorganisation under Walter R. Seavey).

Peter Eckrich — the Waldsee butcher

2 January 1864 – 30 March 1942

Peter Eckrich was an immigrant from Waldsee, Germany, who arrived in America at seventeen and set up as a butcher on Lewis Street in Fort Wayne. In 1894 he opened his own meat market; by 1907 the business had moved into…

Fred Eckart — the first great packer

the plant at 1825 West Main Street

Fred Eckart was Fort Wayne's original meat packer, and long its largest: a German immigrant who, by the tradition the genealogical society copies, came to America at sixteen with fifty cents in his pocket. The tradition is…

Sam Wolf and Myron Eisman Dessauer — the department store

opened 1896

Sam Wolf and Myron Eisman Dessauer opened Wolf & Dessauer in 1896 at 808 South Calhoun Street, the store that became downtown Fort Wayne's great department store. It moved to 119 West Berry Street for the years 1904 to 1918 and afterwards to its final downtown home. A later president, G. Irving Latz, led the store into the postwar years and died in 1947. The founders' documented record is the founding and the store itself; its course — the Christmas windows, the fire era and the close — is the Business section's.

Sources:

Businesses — "Wolf & Dessauer" (the 1896 opening, the addresses and dates, President Latz's death in 1947).

John B. Franke — the baker who gave the city a park

founded 1901 · died 1927

John B. Franke established the Wayne Biscuit Company in Fort Wayne in 1901, at 350 Pearl Street — the company that became Perfection Biscuit, then Perfection Bakeries, and in time the Aunt Millie's Bakeries of the Business…

The Wayne Candies founders — Heit, Miller, Lau and Dickmeyer

begun 1902 · renamed 1930

The Heit-Miller-Lau Company was named for its three founders — Anthony Heit, Joseph Miller and Thomas Lau — who began it in 1902. The rising man from 1919 was W. Charles Dickmeyer, who came over from Perfection Bakeries, where he had been sales manager, took ownership of the candy house, and in 1930 renamed it Wayne Candies. Dickmeyer died in 1968, and his family sold the company. The candy itself — the Bun bar and its kin — belongs to the Business section.

Sources:

Businesses — "Wayne Candies (Heit-Miller-Lau Company)" (the three founders, Dickmeyer's 1919 arrival and 1930 renaming, his 1968 death and the family sale).

Perry Randall and Arthur F. Hall — the men who founded Lincoln Life

founded 12 June 1905

Lincoln National Life was organised out of a wreck: the Fraternal Assurance Society of America had failed in 1902, and on 12 June 1905 — the articles of incorporation were drawn on 29 May — four Fort Wayne men founded the new…

Gustav Berghoff — soap, not beer

acquired 1892 · sold 1926

Gustav Berghoff was of the Berghoff brewing family — a different man from Henry C. Berghoff, the mayor profiled in the People sections. Gustav's line was soap: in 1892 he acquired the struggling Rub-No-More soap works in Fort Wayne and built it into a national laundry-soap brand. In December 1926 he sold the company's rights, trademarks and formulas to Procter & Gamble for $325,000, keeping ownership of the building and grounds for himself.

Sources:

Businesses — "Rub-No-More Company" (the 1892 acquisition and the 1926 Procter & Gamble sale).
Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana (ACGSI) — the terms of the 1926 sale and the retained building and grounds.

John J. Tokheim and Ralph F. Diserens — the pump company that was moved here

Tokheim 1871 – 1941 · Diserens died 1925

Tokheim was not a Fort Wayne founding, and this entry says so plainly: John J. Tokheim, born 17 May 1871 at Odda, Norway, and died 15 March 1941, founded his pump company in Cedar Rapids, Iowa — the Business record carries both…

August Lassus — from coal to gasoline

founded 1925

August Lassus sold his coal business in 1925 to build a gasoline station at one of Fort Wayne's busiest intersections — the founding act of Lassus Bros. Oil. Within three years he had turned the business over to his sons, Elmer, August Jr. and William Lassus. The line ran on: Jon F. Lassus joined the company in 1960 and later served as its chief executive and chairman, and a fourth generation followed him. The company, headquartered at 1800 Magnavox Way, marked its centennial in 2025. The stations and the convenience-store course are the Business section's.

Sources:

Businesses — "Lassus Bros. Oil Company" (the 1925 founding, the sons' succession, Jon F. Lassus's 1960 arrival and later chief-executive years, the centennial).

Charles H. Seyfert — the chip maker

first batch 20 August 1934

Charles H. Seyfert cooked his first batch of potato chips on 20 August 1934 at 450 East Wallace Street in Fort Wayne — the founding of Seyfert's, the chip company the city snacked on for the rest of the century. The company was sold to Borden in 1982. The brand's long course, and the plant's end, are the Business section's; Seyfert's documented record is the founding itself.

Sources:

Businesses — "Seyfert's (Seyfert Foods)" (the first batch of 20 August 1934 at 450 East Wallace Street; the 1982 Borden sale).

Victor Rea — the wire man who struck out on his own

Dudlo foreman 1912 · founded Rea 1933 · died 1954

Victor Rea came up inside George Jacobs's wire works: the company's own ninetieth-anniversary account has him starting as a foreman in 1912 at the Dudlo Company, which had relocated from Cleveland to Wall Street in Fort Wayne the…

Irving Rifkin — scrap from a truck

emigrated 1920 · first yard 1943

Irving Rifkin emigrated from Russia in 1920 and began as so many Fort Wayne founders began — with almost nothing: he collected and resold scrap from a truck, and borrowed $7,500 from an uncle to get standing. In 1943 he and his…

Arnold Gerberding — the hardware co-operative

born Fort Wayne 1900 · founded 28 June 1945 · died 1977

Arnold Gerberding spent a quarter-century learning hardware before he founded anything: born in Fort Wayne in 1900, he went to work for Pfeiffer Hardware after high school, spent nearly two decades as a buyer at Schafer Hardware…

Ardelle Glaze — the founder who founded it twice

1910 – 1985 · founded 1946 and again in 1971

Ardelle Glaze was born in West Virginia in 1910 and grew up in Akron, Ohio; he worked at distilling bourbon, in the baking industry and at machine repair, studied at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and spent the war years…

Nord and Teddi Krauskopf — insuring the racers

Nord 26 January 1922 – 3 August 1986 · founded 1952

Nord Krauskopf was born and died in Fort Wayne, and spent the middle of his life around stock cars. He entered racing in 1948 and found the sport's drivers covered, when they were hurt, only by a benevolent fund fed from their…

Edward A. and Joan White — Bowmar's founding household

incorporated 1951

Bowmar Instrument Corporation began as a household wager: the Seventh Circuit's findings of fact in Dixon v. White , decided 28 January 1964, set the founding down as a court record. In 1951 Edward A. White — a graduate engineer…

Marion and Vern Ward, and Gail Cole — the pattern shop in the knitting mill

founded 18 May 1964 · Cole 1969

On 18 May 1964 Marion and Vern Ward opened the doors of Ward Pattern & Engineering Company in the former Wayne Knitting Mills building on Growth Avenue — a small pattern shop with three employees and 1,500 square feet, and…

The bowling and equipment men — Carteaux, Schmidt and Brown

1959 · 1968

Two Fort Wayne manufacturers began in the trades they served: Bob Carteaux and Marty Schmidt started Classic Products in 1959 as Fort Wayne Bowling Supply, in the Key Lanes pro shop, and built it into the bowling industry's catalogue house. Ralph E. Brown, whose background was mechanical engineering, founded Brown Equipment Company — incorporated in 1968 — around his Portapatcher machine. Brown died in 1994; his son Douglas had joined the company in 1975, a third generation, Scott Brown, joined in 2010, and the company's president today is Joseph W. Fisher. Both firms' courses are the Business section's.

Sources:

Businesses — "Classic Products Corp." and "Brown Equipment Company" (the companies' own histories: the 1959 pro-shop start; Brown's 1968 incorporation, engineering background, 1994 death and the family successions).

Fort Wayne Founders and CEOs: The People Who Built Its Companies

Francis Comparet — the first store on Columbia Street

The first storekeepers — Suttenfield, Ewing, Henderson, Bourie, Holcomb & Marquis, Coles

Noble G. Olds and Henry G. Olds — wagon wheels for a continent

Kerr Murray — the foundryman

Henry C. Paul and Samuel M. Foster — the organisers

Gideon Webster Seavey — the hardware house

Peter Eckrich — the Waldsee butcher

Fred Eckart — the first great packer

Sam Wolf and Myron Eisman Dessauer — the department store

John B. Franke — the baker who gave the city a park

The Wayne Candies founders — Heit, Miller, Lau and Dickmeyer

Perry Randall and Arthur F. Hall — the men who founded Lincoln Life

Gustav Berghoff — soap, not beer

John J. Tokheim and Ralph F. Diserens — the pump company that was moved here

August Lassus — from coal to gasoline

Charles H. Seyfert — the chip maker

Victor Rea — the wire man who struck out on his own

Irving Rifkin — scrap from a truck

Arnold Gerberding — the hardware co-operative

Ardelle Glaze — the founder who founded it twice

Nord and Teddi Krauskopf — insuring the racers

Edward A. and Joan White — Bowmar's founding household

Marion and Vern Ward, and Gail Cole — the pattern shop in the knitting mill

The bowling and equipment men — Carteaux, Schmidt and Brown

Jim Ash and Tim Ash — the brokerage general agency

Barbara Bradley Baekgaard and Patricia R. Miller — Vera Bradley

Keith Busse, Mark Millett and Richard Teets — Steel Dynamics

David Ruoff — "I dug the first ditch"

Frank M. Freimann — the chief who came with Magnavox

Ian M. Rolland — Lincoln's hometown chief

The chiefs who came here — a grouped record

The chief executives Fort Wayne produced — the roster

Two modern foundings, briefly — Asher and Petroleum Traders

Women and Black Founders

Cite this page