Last winter, a windstorm damaged the post of our Philo Farnsworth marker in Fort Wayne. Farnsworth (1906-1971) conceived of the idea for electronic television at the age of fourteen and brought his conception to fruition in 1927 with his first electronic transmission. In 1939, he established the Farnsworth Television and Radio Company in Fort Wayne, eventually operating seven television and radio manufacturing plants in Indiana.
We want to thank the Traffic Operations Department of the City of Fort Wayne for their help replacing the post and getting the marker back up at the site this fall and the Hill family for repainting it!
November 21st is known as World Television Day. The credited inventory of the television, Philo Farnsworth, lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He began a factory for televisions in Fort Wayne in 1938. While the factory no longer stands, his house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Ninde-Mead-Farnsworth House, where he lived from 1948-1967. The c. 1910 one-and-one-half story, front-gabled, wood clapboard house features shed roof dormers and wide overhanging eaves common to the Craftsman style, but also features Colonial Revival influences in the design of the main entrance door topped by a fanlight and flanked by multi-paned sidelights, underneath a pedimented portico with curved undersides.
Learn more about the Ninde-Mead-Farnsworth House by visiting SHAARD Database.
SHAARDIndiana Historic Buildings, Bridges, and Cemeteries Map site points to the Indiana Buildings, Bridges, and Cemeteries Map with thousands of location pins for the state and individual counties. The Farnsworth House is IHSSI (County Survey) Survey Number: 003-215-49051. National Register Listing, NR-2260 "Ninde-Meade-Farnsworth House" 1996 IHSSI Fort Wayne Interim Report #003-215-17411. Statement of Significance: Significant for its association with Daniel B. Ninde, Franklin B. Meade, and Philo T. Farnsworth. Ninde originally built the house and was associated with The Wildwood Builders Company. Mead was associated with Lincoln National Life Insurance Company and is credited for positioning the company in an industry-leading role. Farnsworth lived in the house from 1948-1967. Farnsworth submitted a patent in 1927 for what would become the modern day television, and is thus credited as the the inventor of the television set. The house is an outstanding example of Craftsman and Colonial Revival style architecture. Name of Repository: ARCH, Inc., Fort Wayne, Indiana; State Register Listed Date: 01/23/2013; National Register Listed Date: 03/20/2013 NPS File Number: 13000082.
TVs history in jeopardy by WANE 15 News March 24, 2010 on YouTube.
A museum dedicated to a Fort Wayne man who created television is about to be homeless. NewsChannel 15's Matt McCutcheon has the story in this report that aired on 3/24/10.
The history of the Capehart Corporation in Fort Wayne, Indiana, dates back to the late 1920s, when entrepreneur Homer Earl Capehart (1897-1970) established the foundations for the enterprise. Capehart was known for producing quality high-end phonographs, radios,radio-console combinations, and jukeboxes.
Homer E. Capehart was born 6 June 1897 in Algiers, Indiana, and he grew up on a farm. After high school he enlisted in the U.S. Army from 1917 to 1919 and advanced to the rank of sergeant. He joined the J.I. Case Corporation as a salesman and soon earned a reputation as a man who could sell anything. He moved from sales to entrepreneurship, at first manufacturing and selling popcorn poppers. In 1928 he established the Automatic Phonograph Corporation; by 1929 the company was manufacturing "talking machines" and was known as the Capehart Automatic Phonograph Corporation. Capehart served as founder and president from 1927to 1932. During the 1930s Depression era, when other companies such as Philco and the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) were developing low-priced consumerradio sets to encourage sales, Capehart stood stubbornly behind the company's high-quality, expensive receivers. This decision led the company to the brink of bankruptcy. In the early 193os, at the height of the Depression, Capehart joined Wurlitzer, a producer of jukeboxes, and as a result the Capehart Corporation was saved. Capehart himself served as vice president of the Wurlitzer Company from 1933 to 1938. The joining of the two companies was a complementary success: Wurlitzer sold jukeboxes, which in turn sold records, which in turn created a demand for the Capehart phonograph. The investment helped make Capehart a wealthy man. Despite success with Wurlitzer, Homer Capehart was forever the adventurer and entrepreneur, and by the end ofthe 1930s he was ready to move into real estate.
In 1938 the Capehart Company and all its "real estate, plants, factories ...all patents, patent licenses and patent application rights, and trade marks" were sold to the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation. Farnsworth kept the name Capehart because of its reputation for quality radio and phonograph manufacturing.The Capehart manufacturing entities were retooled to manufacture both Farnsworth and Capehart brand-name radio and television receivers intended for consumer sale. The Farnsworth Corporation was banking on the Capehart organization's reputation for quality to launch its entrance into the manufacturing business. However, World War II intervened, and the plants were converted a second time, this time for the manufacturing ofarmed forces communication equipment. Following the war, the name Capehart surfaced again. By 1949 the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation
(ITT) had purchased the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation, and the Capehart-Farnsworth division of the company was returned to consumer manufacturing. However, even with the financial backing of ITT, the Capehart-Farnsworth sets were never able to capture a significant share of the radio and television manufacturing market. They were competing against the giants of radio manufacturing at the time-RCA, General Electric, Philco, and Westinghouse. By 1954 the Capehart-Farnsworth division of ITT was split. The Farnsworth Electronic division continued as a wholly owned subsidiary of ITT, but the Capehart manufacturing was sold in 1956 to the Ben Gross Corporation, a holding company. The manufacturing properties in Fort Wayne were retained by ITT, CAPITAL RADIO 2.97 the remaining assetswere sold,and the Capehartname disappeared from the history of radio and television.
DONALD G. GODFREY
See also High Fidelity; Receivers
Further Reading
Godfrey, DonaldG., Philo T Farnsworth:The Father of
Television, Salt Lake City: Universityof Utah Press, 2.001
Pickett, WilliamB., HomerE. Capehart:A Senator's Life,
1897-1979, Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1990
Sampson, Anthony, The Sovereign State ofITT, New York:
Stein and Day, 1973
Homer E. Capehart was a businessman and politician who grew wealthy manufacturing phonographs, radios, and jukeboxes, and served as a Republican Senator from Indiana from 1944-1962. Starting out as a salesman, Homer Capehart founded the Automatic Phonograph Corporation in 1927, which became the Capehart Corporation in 1928, with headquarters in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Copied from Capehart-Farnsworth 661-P Television (1948) on antiqueradio.org. See Homer E. Capehart and Philo T. Farnsworth.
90 Fun Facts: In 1938, Philo T. Farnsworth, the inventor of the television, brought his t.v. manufacturing company to Fort Wayne, bought the Capehart Company and began making the world's first mass-produced televisions.
On March 14, 1939, Capehart-Farnsworth opened for business in Fort Wayne. The company produced radios, phonographs, and television equipment. Read more about Farnsworth with IHB historian Nicole Poletika's article in the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel.
Page 12, The Capehart - Farnsworth Television & Radio Corporation Fort Wayne, Indiana advertisement in Life Magazine: Life 1947-07-28 Vol. 23, No. 4 by Life Publication date 1947-07-28
