The Racine Electric Company is one of the more recently established enterprises of the County, having been in existence for four years. It was organized in 1912 with Toulie Tolfson as president; John Ruggaber as secretary, treasurer and manager, and William Nelson as director. In the year 1913 Messrs. Tolfson and Nelson sold out and Herbert Van Bree, purchasing an interest in the business, was elected to the presidency. The business was started on Douglas avenue, in a small place, there remaining until the increasing trade caused a removal when larger quarters were secured at the corner of Prospect and Superior streets, where they occupied the third floor of the building with the Racine Iron & Wire Works. They manufacture electric motor specialties, vacuum cleaners, vibrators, motors, fans, drink mixers and grinding motors and the product is sold in all parts of America and in Canada. Mr. Ruggaber, a man of marked inventive genius and ingenuity, has taken out patents on most of the articles manufactured. Thirty-six employees are on the payroll and the output is sold largely to dealers, manufacturers’ agents and jobbers. With the acceptance of electricity as a motive power and rapid development of electrical business their output has come into general use and their patronage has steadily grown. The company will build a three-story brick factory on the North Side on Yout Street near Douglas Avenue.
Source: Stone, Fanny S. Racine, Belle City of the lakes, and Racine County, Wisconsin : a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement; Chicago: S. J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1916.
I used Racine Electric Company meters in an Electronics lab at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1990 or so. We used up all the modern multimeters and needed more meters to measure voltage, amperage and power. The lab teaching assistant opened an old locker and broke out the Racine meters. Unlike modern multimeters each one only measured one thing.
They were gorgeous. They were housed in hardwood wooden cases, had a beautiful fillagreed needle for the analog meter and despite being 70 years old worked fine and were still accurate.