April Friday History: Cooking Up History with Despatch Oven Co

By Matt Goff, KA Archivist

In the mid twentieth century, Kraus-Anderson developed a special relationship with the Despatch Oven Company.

Despatch Oven began in 1902 when a young Albert Grapp was inspired to warm the toes of Minneapolis trolley riders by the same electricity that was moving them around town.

From these humblest of warmers, Despatch shifted to the opposite scale, specializing in industrial ovens that baked “a hundred farm tractors a day.” By the 1920s, it was known as the largest producer of ovens in the world.

It was, so this archivist presumes, not the scale of production so much as the size of the ovens that tied Despatch to Kraus-Anderson: Some of these ovens were first assembled at the Despatch factory, then disassembled, transported, and installed elsewhere.

The first connection between Kraus-Anderson and Despatch isn’t known for certain, but it may have been nothing more complicated than a job well done: In 1944 Kraus-Anderson built an office and engineering lab for the Despatch at 619 8^th Street SE, in the Marcy Holmes neighborhood.

Always remarkably recession proof, demand for Despatch ovens exploded during WWII, and this 1944 R&D building was one of the results.

A notice in the Minneapolis Times makes it clear that, for a small building, it was a big pretty deal: “The new Despatch office building, fireproof, air conditioned, sound proof, scientifically lighted and laid out, with a large fire proof vault, reflects the company’s willingness to pioneer new fields. In the research and engineering department, an idea will become a plan.”

With an estimated cost of 24,000 dollars, the Despatch Oven facility was the largest project (for which there are existing records) Kraus-Anderson undertook during WWII. The plant continued to be used after the war, with a 1960s addition doubling its size. The building was torn down in the early 2000s, and a condominium now stands in its place.

In the 1950s, Kraus-Anderson of Saint Paul did several jobs that involved installing Despatch ovens, including one for the St. Paul Ford factory.

Later that decade, Lloyd Engelsma, KA’s owner/operator at the time, accepted a position on the Despatch’s board of directors

Although Despatch Oven Co is now owned by the industrial conglomerate Illinois Tool Works, it still produces ovens, or, in the current language: thermal processing technology.