Enterprise Stoves from the Phillips & Buttorff Corporation of Nashville, Tennessee

I thought I'd share one of my 2020 Christmas present with all of you.  This stove catalog is from the Phillips & Buttorff Corporation of Nashville, Tennessee, and lists all of their coal and wood ranges, stoves, and heaters.

It has been very difficult to find information about the Phillips and Buttorff Corporation anywhere on the internet.  What little I've found says that when Henry W. Buttorff, who was born in 1837, came of working age, he started as a sheet metal apprentice and worked his way into being a leading businessman in the state of Tennessee.  The Phillips & Buttorff Manufacturing Corporation was incorporated in 1881 but had been in business as Phillips, Buttorff & Company for several years before that.   

There is no date anywhere in this catalog, but my best guess is that it dates from 1946 - 1950.  I base this on the following evidence:

a) The style of stoves shown in the catalog.

b) The font styles used for the text.

c) Page 1 identifies this as catalog "T."

My research uncovered that Catalog "H" came out in 1932.  If a single catalog were published each year, Catalog "T" should have come out in 1944.  However, we all know that World War II stopped stove production in the U.S. since all foundries were retooled to produce munitions or other products needed for the war.  

The catalog does say that Phillips & Buttorff also produced a complete line of electric and gas stoves at the time it was published.  During my research, I found several pictures of Enterprise gas stoves from this company, some of which looked as though they were produced in the 1960s.  I was not able to find any information about the company's end, though.

Before you take a look at the pictures below, let me say that I was initially confused about this catalog because I expected it to depict the Enterprise stoves which were manufactured in Canada.  I now know that the Canadian Enterprise stove line was manufactured by Enterprise Fawcett in Sackville, New Brunswick, and had no connection that I can find to the Tennessee company using the same branding.

Enough comments, Jim.  Let the pictures speak for themselves!

The ten-page gap here is because the omitted pages all had to do with their heating stoves.

The page above, my friends, is the type of thing that caused me to start this blog.  Notice how scant the directions really are.

If any of my readers has a Phillips & Buttorff Enterprise stove, please comment below about your experiences with it.  Also, if anyone who reads this knows more about the Phillips & Buttorff Corporation, by all means, utilize the comments to let us all know more about this company!  

Summit Ranges from the Andes Range and Furnace Corporation

The posts I wrote about Kalamazoo and Quick Meal cookstoves a while back have proven to be some of the more popular posts on this blog, so I thought I'd share another piece of my cookstove library with you.  The following images are from a booklet published by the Andes Range and Furnace Corporation of Geneva, New York.  No date appears anywhere in its pages, but from the styles of wood and coal ranges that it advertises and from the fonts used, I would date it from the late 1930s to perhaps 1940.

The cover of the brochure on Summit ranges.

A little internet research tells me that the Andes Range and Furnace Corporation began as the Phillips & Clark Stove Company and moved to Geneva from Troy, New York, in 1885.  Phillips & Clark started the Andes line, and it became so popular that the company changed its name to the Andes Range and Furnace Corporation in 1924.  Sometime in the 1930s, the Andes Range and Furnace Corporation merged with the Summit Foundry, which signaled the beginning of their production of enameled ranges.  The company went out of business in 1951 (from Geneva by the Geneva Historical Society).

Even if I hadn't provided the address of the company, the experienced wood cookstove enthusiast will recognize that these ranges were made in the northeastern part of the United States.  The big giveaway is that the oven doors swing to the right rather than opening down.

No prices are listed anywhere in the brochure, but it appears to me that they started with their finest range.

The next four pages advertise their "Homestead" model ranges.  The first two pages show Homestead ranges with what are called "hearths."  These are the shelves on the left side of the range by the lower drafts.  Again, these were much more common on stoves in the Northeast than those in the Midwest.

The following two pages have Homestead ranges without hearths and with slightly different appearances.  The other features are the same.

The next pictures are what make me think that the date of this brochure is the very late 1930s or 40s.  Sleek, boxy, cabinet-style ranges like this came into fashion around that time.  Notice that these oven doors are also all hinged to open down.

These next pages are stamped "DISCONTINUED," and you can see that the styles of the ranges are a little more old-fashioned in nature.

And now for the piece de re´sistance: the double-oven ranges.  How I would like to cook on a range like these sometime!

Something I notice about several stove catalogs of this vintage is that their household ranges were modernized in appearance and enamel, but their "hotel" or "restaurant" ranges remained unchanged from the styles that were popular at the turn of the twentieth century.

The remaining pages of the booklet advertise their small line of coal and wood heating stoves and then has reprints of some of the pictures for the Royal, Manor, and Villa, which were also available as oil-burning ranges.

If anyone who reads this post has one of these ranges or can put a more definite date on this booklet, please use the comments feature below to let us all know.

Quick Meal Ranges

Due to the positive response I received regarding the post about the Kalamazoo Stove Company catalog from September 1931, I've pulled another artifact out of my collection to share with you all: a little brochure about Quick Meal Ranges.

This brochure measures 3 1/2" x 6 3/8" and does not have a date on it anywhere.  From the styles of range and the print fonts used in it, my best guess is that it is from the late 1920s or early 1930s.

The Quick Meal Stove Company was located in St. Louis, Missouri, and eventually became Magic Chef.  

The first pages of the brochure talk about the exterior finish on their ranges, which they call "Fusenamel."  I have only seen a couple of Quick Meal ranges in person.  One was a bright blue, and I have to admit that the enamel had endured beautifully.  In case you can't see it well in the scans below, these pages also tell you that the enamel comes in "lustrous white, blue, grey, or tan."

The next pages contain the obligatory advertisement for how well the ovens on Quick Meal ranges bake.  It points out that the oven is made with zinc and is "the most uniformly heated and perfect-baking oven ever devised."

It also explains that some of their ranges are made with "triple wall construction" where exterior range walls are made of two layers of fusenamel with a layer of asbestos in between.  I would think that this would make the range more pleasant to use in the summer.

The last page of text points out the range's "corner tube" with a cutaway illustration.  I thought this was particularly interesting.  The text reads "An exclusive and patented feature.  Notice how side walls clamp into tube. The tube permits expansion and contraction of walls, yet it always holds firmly."  Then, the cavalcade of beautiful pictures begins.

The range on the right of the picture below begins their more affordable line which has only single wall construction and a smaller oven.

I didn't scan the back cover because it has no pictures, but it does have "No. 678" printed there.

Are any of my readers cooking on a Quick Meal, and do any of you have any information on a more precise date for this brochure?  If so, please use the comments section below to tell us about it.

Kalamazoo Ranges from 1931

I kind of think of this last Christmas as a "Cookstove Christmas" in that most of the gifts that I received had to do with woodburning cookstoves. One such gift came from my sister.  In our kitchen, we have a framed magazine ad from the September 1931 issue of The Country Gentleman. The ad is telling people that they should order a copy of the Kalamazoo Stove Company's catalog.  It has been hanging there for perhaps three or four years, and I have often looked at it and wished that I could fill out the little mail-in card in the lower right corner and request a copy of the catalog.

A photo of the framed advertisement hanging on
our kitchen wall.  Sorry about the reflection of the
camera flash.

Well, I requested a copy of the catalog all right, but my request went through eBay.  You can't imagine how excited I was to find the very catalog that was shown in this advertisement come up for auction online! 

The catalog is comprised of about sixty pages of attractive color illustrations and really is very impressive for its age.  

In 1931, the Kalamazoo Stove Company of Kalamazoo, Michigan, was manufacturing not only ranges, but also heating stoves, furnaces, duct work, and washing machines.  They were in operation from 1900 to 1952, and some of the stoves that they made are still in daily use today.  You frequently see them for sale on eBay and Craigslist.  Kalamazoo stoves were popular because they were pretty affordable since the company didn't use a middleman to sell their products.  The company's slogan was "A Kalamazoo - Direct to You."

My personal opinion is that their stoves also seem to be of a little lesser quality than other brands.  Thus, when you see them for sale today, you also tend to see them in a little worse shape than their contemporaries.  

Since this blog is intended to be about all things wood cookstove related, I've scanned all the pages which had to do with their ranges and included them in this post.  I hope this can serve as a resource for anyone who has, or is interested in, this line of stoves.  I've never done a post quite like this, so let me know what you think. 

The front cover of the catalog.  You can see
"Sept. 1931" handwritten at the top left in pencil.

The following are all of the pages that had anything to do with cookstoves and are shown here in the order that they appeared in the catalog.  You may be able to read quite a bit of the text if you click on the pictures to view them in a little larger format.

The parts page appears early in the catalog.

The most common advertising point I've seen
for ALL wood cookstove manufacturers was
what wonderful bakers their particular brand
of stove was.  Obviously, this was of great
concern to the consumer, but I wonder which
brand truly was the best baker.

The only small "cookstove" in the catalog is
the one at the lower left of the above page.
The rest of them are all "ranges."

You can tell that by 1931, the Great Depression
was in effect because the prices on these ranges
had fallen from the previous years--in some cases
by quite a bit.

I wish I could have scanned the next two pages in a single large image because they are the "centerfold" of the catalog and introduce The President, which was their flagship range that year.

After the above page, the catalog transitioned into Kalamazoo's heating stoves and then their line of furnaces and ductwork, finishing with their two models of washing machines on the last page.

The catalog's back cover.

Beautiful pictures, aren't they?

I have other vintage cookstove materials like this in my vast collections. Are posts like this valuable to my readers?  I welcome your feedback.