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A Jolt Out of the Blue
Elsa Pourshahbaz The S & C Electric Company located at the far northside Chicago neighborhood of Rogers Park, is one of the world's leading producers of high voltage switching equipment. Its history is important to Rogers Park. The earliest inhabitants of the Rogers Park area were the Potawatomi Indians. In fact, Rogers Avenue was once Potawatomi territory and partitioned by the Indian Boundary Treaty of 1816. The first mark left by white people in Rogers Park was across the street from where S & C Company now stands. "The Ridge" was later used as a stagecoach route because it was high and dry due to a glacier of thousands of years ago. Philip Rogers was the first white settler of Rogers Park. The land he purchased composes most of Rogers Park today, including the forty-five acres of the current industrial complex that S & C occupies. The Chicago and North Western Railroad System's tracks passed through Rogers Park and mark the eastern edge of S & C today. Patrick L. Touhy, the husband of Philip Rogers' daughter Catherine, and other settlers mapped the land that he passed on to her. A residential area surrounds the high technical industrial park that the S & C Company encompasses. A fire on Fisk Street in downtown Chicago led to the founding of S & C Electric Company. An electrical failure in a Commonwealth Edison generating station caused the fire. Two Commonwealth Edison engineers, Edmund O. Schweitzer and Nicholas J. Conrad, knew something had to be done to make working with electrical circuits less hazardous. They were concerned about coming up with a plan and decided to find and use a chemical that would break a circuit safely and successfully. They tested and experimented with many chemicals and liquids, and in 1909 they developed a power fuse made of carbon tetrachloride. Commonwealth Edison used this fuse. In order to increase business, the two inventors realized they needed their own space. Conrad wanted to rent three rooms in the R. J. Bennett Building, and Schweitzer approved this idea. There they began manufacturing the S & C liquid power fuse, but they both kept their jobs at Commonwealth Edison while operating part-time at the R. J. Bennett site. As they continued the business, they needed money to further finance their venture and buy equipment. A friend loaned them one thousand dollars in 1911 to continue. Finally, in 1914, the company was incorporated. Today, S & C has progressed and improved its products and machinery. Switch products (transmission-voltage and medium-voltage breakers), fuse products, metal-enclosed gear products, electronic products, polymer products, and power systems are manufactured and used here. S & C Electric Company has many customers. Their biggest consumers are public utility companies, such as Commonwealth Edison (Com Ed). They sell switches and fuses to Com Ed. Underground switches are also sold. One of the many customers that buys underground switches is Six Flags Great America Amusement Park. Other customers are Texas Instruments and Intel Computer Company. The chief competitors of S & C Electric Company are General Electric and Josylyn Corp. However, in the area of large fuses, S & C is very competitive. One special feature of the S & C Company is the fact that it is still privately owned. S & C has considerable impact today. An interesting but little known fact is that the rear entrance of S & C Electric was used as the site for an early scene in the movie "Home Alone 3." The company's manufactured switching equipment, however, has global impact.—[From P. Barry, "When S & C was corn: a brawny city hungry for progress," Volts & Jolts (1987); Illinois Manufacturer's Association, A Story of Illinois Manufacturing; S & C Electric Company, The S & C Story . . . its first fifty years as a specialist in high-voltage circuit interruption; D. Taylor, P. Barry, T. Severa, "Make way: 400-ton press moves into building 5," Volts & Jolts (1999); D. Taylor, P. Barry, T. Severa, "Technical training institute instructors honored," Volts & Jolts (1998); D. Taylor, W. Neuhengen, S & C Staff Members, lecture, Jamieson School auditorium, Nov. 4, 1999.]
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