Wilhelm: Thomson Houston Company had a 100-year run in Fremont

The site of Fremont’s First Choice Packaging Company, a firm that today serves a wide variety of industries with designing and manufacturing solutions to packaging challenges, was for more than a century home to another industry that met challenges.

The firm’s story formally began with the Thomson Houston Company beginning production of arc lighting carbons. It technically ended when the Eveready Battery Company’s Fremont plant closed its doors in March of 1998.

Thomson Houston, Eveready had a 100-year run

A history committee composed of Janet Sloma, Karol Meyer, Janie Fisher and plant manager Ken Crozier, with important contributions from E.C. Smith, the plant’s first chemist, and former plant manager Donald Hoppert, compiled an incredible story of the plant.

There is no way for me to address the details of an industry that met and successfully dealt with the constant challenges presented by materials and markets. But I can share some of the history.

The Thomson Houston Company began production of arc lighting carbons at a facility on State Street in 1887.

According to Wikipedia, arc light carbon consists of an arc between carbon electrodes in the air. Invented by Humphry Davy in the first decade of the 1800s, it was the first practical electric light.

Electric appliances, push button devices, incandescent lights, radios, television sets and automobiles were pretty much things of the future when the Thompson Houston Company began production in Fremont. Yet, those were among items that the company would come to serve.

A consolidation of several companies which manufactured carbon products — including Thomson Houston — resulted in the formation of the National Carbon Company in 1890. One year later, the local plant was destroyed by a blaze believed to have been caused by a night watchman’s kerosene lantern igniting a mixture of gases. It was a blaze that the Fremont Journal called “the most disastrous fire that has ever visited our city.” Badly bruised, the watchman, Daniel Muskersturm, survived.

Town helped to rebuild plant after massive fire

The community stepped up to help, and rebuilding began in March of the next year. By November, the plant was producing 70,000 carbons daily.

While arc light carbon production continued, the plant experts were working on the development of batteries. The demand was great, and, at the same time, rapidly changing. The company responded to those demands by developing products to meet them.

According to the company's history book, “The next 25 years were destined to be real 'boomers' for the dry cell business and National Carbon led the parade of dozens of manufacturers of batteries.

“During this time, three major developments in the country created the greater part of the demand for batteries; first the development of internal combustion engines with electric spark plus, the tremendous expansion and development of telephones, and finally, the invention and development of radios.”

The company changed to meet a developing market

Through the years, the company dealt with needed changes in materials and new challenges from developing markets.

In 1959, National Carbon became the consumer products division of Union Carbide Corporation and the local plant began producing flashlight batteries under the Eveready label.

Twenty years later, the “six inch” battery production was halted in Fremont and not long after that, Union Carbide, which was struggling to recover from the Bhopal, India, pesticide plant disaster, sold its battery products division to Ralston Purina.

With changing markets, Eveready struggled with declining consumer demand and began closing battery plants in the late 1980s. The local closing was announced June 3, 1997 and came about nine months later and more than 100 years after the story began.

Roy Wilhelm started a 40-year career at The News-Messenger in 1965 as a reporter. Now retired, he writes a column for both The News-Messenger and News Herald.

This article originally appeared on Fremont News-Messenger: Fremont plant that closed in 1998 had 100-year history