Eureka Production Overview


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Thread Number: 44152 / Tag: Pre-1950 Vacuum Cleaners
Eureka Production Overview

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Post# 459807 1/27/2023 at 17:32 (452 days old) by Paul (USA)
Checkrate/Likes 1 In 1909, real estate auctioneer Fred Wardell of Detroit, Michigan, acquired several patents for emerging vacuum cleaner technology and started up The Eureka Vacuum Cleaner Company. In 1910 he incorporated the company in Michigan. By 1913 Eureka’s cleaners came in six different models with a multitude of attachments for walls, upholstery, and bare floors. The cleaners were sold to the public through two distributors, one handling accounts to the east of an imaginary line through Detroit, and the other handling accounts to the west. Eureka manufactured 2,000 vacuum cleaners a day by 1919. Demand for the cleaners grew through the 1920s. In 1919, the firm of Beckett & Akitt, designed a factory for the company located on a 3.5-acre site at the corner of Holden Street and Hamilton Avenue in downtown Detroit. At the time it was called the largest vacuum cleaner factory in the world. It is now the location of Lodge Freeway service drive. By 1931, it was pumping out 2,000 cleaners a day. During WWII the factory went into war production of gas masks for our soldiers. By 1946, the company was distributing its vacuum cleaners through 5,500 dealers, with 55 distributors, 12 of them company owned. By 1947, those numbers had increased to 8,500 dealers and 9,000 retailers. Burritt began to spend heavily on national advertising, a practice that had lapsed in the 1930s. The company had a net worth of over $6 million that year. In the fiscal year ending June 1947, sales totaled $21 million, with profits of $1 million. Oil burners accounted for approximately one third of sales and profits; however, there was almost no overlap in the production and distribution of the merged companies. In an attempt to broaden its array of consumer goods and enlarge its distribution network, Eureka-Williams bought the Chicago-based National Stamping & Electric Works in 1946 for $640,000. The company made electric toasters, irons, and other appliances under the “White Cross” label, with sales of $500,000 a year. The following year, it came out with a line of electric disposal units, the Dispos-O-Matic. Due to the construction of Lodge Freeway, in late 1955 the company purchased the Meadows Manufacturing Company plant from Thor Corporation for $450,000. The plant, located south of Bell Street and west of Hannah Street on Bloomington Illinois' southeast side, consisted of two buildings with aggregate floor area of 180,000 square feet had been used from its inception in 1920 to the mid-1950s to manufacture conventional wringer clothes washers under brand names such as Meadow Lark and Select-a-Speed. During the Korean War it also produced 16mm shells. Even with wider distribution and national advertising, Eureka consistently ran behind Hoover. In vacuum cleaner circles a battle raged between the proponents of the canister-type cleaner and the upright models. Eureka sidestepped the issue by selling both, and an assortment of attachments, in the “Eureka Home Cleaning System,” which in 1947 sold for the hefty sum of $144.95 (which would be just under $2000 in Dec. 2022). This concept allowed Eureka to sell two cleaners per sale instead of one. Eureka celebrated its 50th anniversary year in 1959, the year in which Feldmann announced his intention to merge Eureka-Williams with National Union Electric Corporation, a heating and air-conditioning manufacturer of which Feldmann was both chairman and president. At the time of the merger Eureka-Williams was described as manufacturing vacuum cleaners, oil burners, school furniture, aircraft generators, hydraulic motors, starters and inverters, and thermal batteries at plants in Bloomington and Canastota, New York. Feldmann took Eureka private and it became a division of National Union. Eureka-Williams fared well with National Union, playing the part of the steady and conservative manufacturer in a rather idiosyncratic company. By 1971, Eureka-Williams accounted for 40 to 50 percent of National Union’s sales and profits, and National Union reported that vacuum cleaner volume had climbed for the 12th consecutive year. In 1973, Eureka-Williams purchased 38 acres of land in north Normal, Illinois and built a warehouse and motor department building at 1201 E. Bell Street. After AB Electrolux of Sweden purchased National Union Electric Company, a 50,000 square foot addition was built at the Bloomington plant plus a 210,000 square foot warehouse plant in Normal. Later, in an attempt to cut production costs, Eureka began to move vacuum-cleaner production out of Bloomington. It first opened a plant to make uprights in El Paso, Texas, in 1983 and another in Juarez, Mexico, in 1984. Both these plants grew substantially over the next seven years. Eureka’s 75th anniversary year, 1984, was said by the company to be its best sales year ever. Eureka reported that sales had increased 211 percent over the previous decade, five times faster than the industry average. In 1989, a major reorganization effort saw hundreds of employees laid off at its Bloomington facilities as recession rippled through the economy. In 1990, Eureka announced that it was moving production of upright cleaners completely to El Paso. The manufacture and assembly of canisters were consequently consolidated at its plant at Normal, Illinois, while headquarters and other manufacturing operations remained at Bloomington at 807 N. Main Street. Eureka reported that it spent $2.2 million restructuring its plants in Illinois. By the mid-1990s, Eureka held steady at its perennial number two position in the vacuum cleaner market, but had rebounded from losses in market share in the early 1990s. The company claimed its highest sales ever in 1993 after introducing its World Vac and Powerline series and broadening The Boss line of cleaners. Eureka held about 20 percent of the $600-million full-sized cleaner market, as compared with Hoover’s 35 percent. The company manufactured more than 100 different models of vacuum cleaners, for home as well as commercial use. In 2000 the Normal plant was shuttered, marking the end of line production in the Bloomington-Normal. On April 1, 2004, The Eureka Company became part of a new company named Electrolux Home Care Products North America to better reflect its parent company. Electrolux ended its presence in the Twin Cities in 2011 and divested the Eureka brand to Midea Group Co., Ltd. on December 2, 2016, while retaining the Sanitaire brand. Then in August 2018 the Sanitaire Division was sold to Bissell, Inc. Side Note: The Normal plant, 903 Morrissey Drive, was purchased by Wildwood Industries, Inc., a producer and supplier of vacuum cleaner bags, scent tablets, floor powders, air filters, carpet cleaner and leaf bags. The company went bankrupt in 2009. In 2016, ownership went to Scott Garth, who converted the 156,000-square-foot building into 10,000 square feet of office space, 45,000 feet of storage - called Morrissey Drive Self-Storage - and 55,000 of warehouse space that can be used for light manufacturing. _____ Credits: encyclopedia.com, mchistory.org, pantagraph.com, ristenbatt.com, insideselfstorage.com, morrisseyselfstorage.com, commons.wikimedia.org _____ Photos: 1) The Eureka-Williams Corporation building on Bell Street at Hannah Street in Bloomington, Illinois on February 28, 2010. This office building was originally built by Williams Oil-O-Matic in 1925 and was adjacent to the manufacturing plant. (Camera roughly southwest, Bell St. east of Hannah St.) - wikimedia.com 2) Electrolux's final headquarters at 807 N. Main Street in Bloomington - wikimedia.com 3) In January 1963 a Eureka-Williams an unidentified plant worker tends to a machine - McClean County Museum of History 4) 1943 WWII Print Ad - depicting Mom O'Rourke making gas masks at the Eureka Vacuum Cleaner factory - eBay.com listing #295406256600 Photos... < > Photo 1 of 4 View Full Size

Post# 459808 , Reply# 1 1/27/2023 at 17:39 (452 days old) by Hoover300 (Kentucky)
Checkrate/Likes Very nice!! Do you have photos of the old Eureka factory? A couple of things, it seems that Eureka only made one model at a time in the early years, and only for a year or two typically. I.e. the model 4 was 1914-15. Eureka also made flare guns for WWII, those can be found in a few online war memorabilia sites.

Post# 459816 , Reply# 2 1/28/2023 at 08:13 (452 days old) by rugsucker (Elizabethton TN)
Checkrate/Likes *'--sell two cleaners per sale instead of one."--* There was some problem with this idea possibly with the Federal Trade Commission or other agency.It was said that customers only wanting an upright with attachments(that was available from Hoover and others)were forced to buy 2 vacs and 1 set off atts with Eureka.This was in a business magazine from late 40s.

Post# 459818 , Reply# 3 1/28/2023 at 10:16 (451 days old) by Paul (USA)
Checkrate/Likes Thanks for the added anecdotes. I encourage you and others to help make the information more accurate and complete. As we all know facts can be overlooked or incorrectly recalled - or even recorded. I wish I'd waited to post, as I see now with fresh vision that I needed to edit better. I was unable to find online photos of the factories, except for a 1966 aerial view of the Bloomington plant, which included other area facilities so lacked specifics. The McClean County Museum of History has a Eureka collection of scrapbooks, so it likely includes photos.

Post# 459826 , Reply# 4 1/28/2023 at 14:47 (451 days old) by Paul (USA)
Checkrate/Likes *Re-edit and Additions* In 1909, real estate auctioneer Fred Wardell of Detroit, Michigan, acquired several patents for emerging vacuum cleaner technology and started up The Eureka Vacuum Cleaner Company. In 1910 he incorporated the company in Michigan. At first, the fledgling company manufactured one model at a time; often produced for only a year or two. For example, Eureka's first cleaner, the Model 1, was manufactured from May 1910 to December 1911. By 1913, however, Eureka’s cleaners came in six different models with a multitude of attachments for walls, upholstery, and bare floors. The cleaners were sold to the public through two distributors, one handling accounts to the east of an imaginary line through Detroit, and the other handling accounts to the west. In 1919, the firm of Beckett & Akitt, designed a factory for the company located on a 3.5-acre site at the corner of Holden Street and Hamilton Avenue in downtown Detroit. At the time it was called the largest vacuum cleaner factory in the world. (it has since become the service drive of Lodge Freeway). Eureka manufactured 2,000 vacuum cleaners a day by 1919. Demand for the cleaners grew through the 1920s, and by 1931 it was pumping out 2,000 cleaners a day. The Depression soon dampened Eureka’s enthusiasm for its costly sales force. Like other companies, Eureka retreated from its dependence on door-to-door salesmen (who averaged 20 calls before they made one sale), and shifted its emphasis from selling through retailers to selling to them. From 1933 to 1936, sales averaged $2.68 million and profits were $251,000. Its expensive distribution system, unsuccessful new product introductions (Eureka also came out with a portable range, which flopped), and outdated factory exacerbated the effects of the collapse of consumer buying during the Depression. By 1937, the company was in the red, and from 1937 to 1939 its annual losses averaged $199,000. Although the quality of Eureka cleaners was still respected, the company was floundering and Wardell had admittedly lost enthusiasm for running it; perhaps, in part, due to the passing of his wife, Helen, in 1936. He therefore sought a successor and persuaded Henry Burritt, the chief of sales for Nash-Kelvinator (the manufacturer of Kelvinator refrigerators), to take charge of the company. In 1939, Burritt took over and set about reorganizing Eureka’s distribution system, shaking up top management, and redesigning the vacuum cleaner. In 1940, the company discontinued its use of door-to-door salesmen. Nevertheless, losses continued, with a $500,000 loss on almost $5 million in sales in 1941. Vacuum cleaners sales had fallen to about seven percent of the industry total. * * * From 1942 until the end of World War II, Eureka’s factory produced only war material, including gas masks and flare guns. During the war years Burritt and his managers focused on how to take advantage of the surge in consumer spending that was expected to follow the war. The company decided to diversify its offerings of consumer appliances and decentralize operations. In 1945, Eureka issued $1.76 million worth of common stock and used the proceeds to purchase 245,000 shares of Oil-O-Matic stock from Walter Williams for $1.39 million; the remaining 185,000 shares of Williams’s stock were traded for Eureka common stock two-for one. The new Eureka-Williams Company came into existence June 4, 1945. By 1946, the company was distributing its vacuum cleaners through 5,500 dealers, with 55 distributors, 12 of them company owned. By 1947, those numbers had increased to 8,500 dealers and 9,000 retailers. Burritt began to spend heavily on national advertising, a practice that had lapsed in the 1930s. The company had a net worth of over $6 million that year. In the fiscal year ending June 1947, sales totaled $21 million, with profits of $1 million. Oil burners accounted for approximately one third of sales and profits; however, there was almost no overlap in the production and distribution of the merged companies. In an attempt to broaden its array of consumer goods and enlarge its distribution network, Eureka-Williams bought the Chicago-based National Stamping & Electric Works in 1946 for $640,000. The company made electric toasters, irons, and other appliances under the “White Cross” label, with sales of $500,000 a year. The following year, it came out with a line of electric disposal units, the Dispos-O-Matic. Even with wider distribution and national advertising, Eureka consistently ran behind Hoover. In vacuum cleaner circles a battle raged between the proponents of the canister-type cleaner and the upright models. Eureka sidestepped the issue by selling both, and an assortment of attachments, in the “Eureka Home Cleaning System,” which in 1947 sold for the hefty sum of $144.95 (which would be just under $2000 in Dec. 2022). This concept allowed Eureka to sell two cleaners per sale instead of one; however, the obligatory purchase of the system caused customer pushback with consumer trade overseers resulting in its discontinuance after a short time. * * * In 1953, Eureka-Williams was purchased by Henney Motor Company. Henney, based in Freeport, Illinois, was controlled by principal stockholder C. Russell Feldmann. The deal was reported to be worth $4 million, with Feldmann laying down only about $400,000 in cash while assuming Eureka-Williams’ obligations. Eureka-Williams became a division of the Henney Motor Company. Due to the construction of Lodge Freeway, in late 1955 the company purchased the Meadows Manufacturing Company plant from Thor Corporation for $450,000. The plant, located south of Bell Street and west of Hannah Street on Bloomington Illinois' southeast side, consisted of two buildings with an aggregate floor area of 180,000 square feet had been used from its inception in 1920 to the mid-1950s to manufacture conventional wringer clothes washers under brand names such as Meadow Lark and Select-a-Speed. During the Korean War it also produced 16mm shells. Eureka celebrated its 50th anniversary year in 1959, the year in which Feldmann announced his intention to merge Eureka-Williams with National Union Electric Corporation, a heating and air-conditioning manufacturer of which Feldmann was both chairman and president. At the time of the merger Eureka-Williams was described as manufacturing vacuum cleaners, oil burners, school furniture, aircraft generators, hydraulic motors, starters and inverters, and thermal batteries at plants in Bloomington and Canastota, New York. Feldmann took Eureka private and it became a division of National Union. * * * Eureka-Williams fared well with National Union, playing the part of the steady and conservative manufacturer in a rather idiosyncratic company. By 1971, Eureka-Williams accounted for 40 to 50 percent of National Union’s sales and profits, and National Union reported that vacuum cleaner volume had climbed for the 12th consecutive year. In 1973, Eureka-Williams purchased 38 acres of land in north Normal, Illinois and built a warehouse and motor department building at 1201 E. Bell Street. After AB Electrolux of Sweden purchased National Union Electric Company, a 50,000 square foot addition was built at the Bloomington plant plus a 210,000 square foot warehouse plant in Normal. * * * Later, in an attempt to cut production costs, Eureka began to move vacuum-cleaner production out of Bloomington. It first opened a plant to make uprights in El Paso, Texas, in 1983 and another in Juarez, Mexico, in 1984. Both these plants grew substantially over the next seven years. Eureka’s 75th anniversary year, 1984, was said by the company to be its best sales year ever. Eureka reported that sales had increased 211 percent over the previous decade, five times faster than the industry average. In 1989, a major reorganization effort saw hundreds of employees laid off at its Bloomington facilities as recession rippled through the economy. In 1990, Eureka announced that it was moving production of upright cleaners completely to El Paso. The manufacture and assembly of canisters were consequently consolidated at its plant at Normal, Illinois, while headquarters and other manufacturing operations remained at Bloomington at 807 N. Main Street. Eureka reported that it spent $2.2 million restructuring its plants in Illinois. By the mid-1990s, Eureka held steady at its perennial number two position in the vacuum cleaner market, but had rebounded from losses in market share in the early 1990s. The company claimed its highest sales ever in 1993 after introducing its World Vac and Powerline series and broadening The Boss line of cleaners. Eureka held about 20 percent of the $600-million full-sized cleaner market, as compared with Hoover’s 35 percent. The company manufactured more than 100 different models of vacuum cleaners, for home as well as commercial use. In 2000 the Normal plant was shuttered, marking the end of line production in the Bloomington-Normal. On April 1, 2004, The Eureka Company became part of a new company named Electrolux Home Care Products North America to better reflect its parent company; five years prior to the Eureka vacuum cleaner brand's centennial. Electrolux ended its presence in the Twin Cities in 2011 and divested the Eureka brand to Midea Group Co., Ltd. on December 2, 2016, while retaining the Sanitaire brand. Then in August 2018 the Sanitaire Division was sold to Bissell, Inc. _________ End Note: The Normal plant, 903 Morrissey Drive, was purchased by Wildwood Industries, Inc., a producer and supplier of vacuum cleaner bags, scent tablets, floor powders, air filters, carpet cleaner and leaf bags. The company went bankrupt in 2009. In 2016, ownership went to Scott Garth, who converted the 156,000-square-foot building into 10,000 square feet of office space, 45,000 feet of storage - called Morrissey Drive Self-Storage - and 55,000 of warehouse space that can be used for light manufacturing. _____ Credits: encyclopedia.com, mchistory.org, pantagraph.com, ristenbatt.com, insideselfstorage.com, morrisseyselfstorage.com, commons.wikimedia.org, findagrave.com

Post# 460027 , Reply# 5 2/3/2023 at 14:33 (445 days old) by rugsucker (Elizabethton TN)
Checkrate/Likes *Eureka!* Photos... < > Photo 1 of 8 View Full Size

Post# 460056 , Reply# 6 2/4/2023 at 18:27 (444 days old) by eurekaprince (Montreal, Canada)
Checkrate/Likes Thanks for those pics Jimmy! That brown upright is Eureka’s first “Automatic” from around 1949!

Post# 460057 , Reply# 7 2/4/2023 at 18:28 (444 days old) by eurekaprince (Montreal, Canada)
Checkrate/Likes Thanks for those pics Jimmy! That brown upright is Eureka’s first “Automatic” from around 1949!

Post# 460104 , Reply# 8 2/6/2023 at 13:31 (442 days old) by Paul (USA)
Checkrate/Likes Thanks a lot, Jimmy! My research indicates that George Walker styled the S-246 "Super Automatic", and it debuted in 1947. That, the Golden Crown canister and 1405-A carton are as rare as hen's teeth! I believe that hood style was used by Eureka into the late '80s or early '90s.

Post# 460157 , Reply# 9 2/8/2023 at 13:35 (440 days old) by Paul (USA)
Checkrate/Likes 1 an artist's rendition of an early Eureka factory possibly from a postcard (no information was provided): View Full Size

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