West Bend Company

Manufacturer of aluminum cookware and electrical appliances

The West Bend Company was a West Bend, Wisconsin, company from 1911 to 2001.

> ...in 1910, Herman Wentorf left Aluminum Goods to join his brother-in-law Kummerow at Standard Aluminum. Aluminum Goods management demanded that Herman’s brothers, Carl and Robert, convince him to return or they would be fired. Instead, they quit and with Bernhard Ziegler started the cookware manufacturer, West Bend Aluminum Co., in 1911.[1]

> When a pocketbook manufacturing company burned down in 1911, many residents of West Bend, Wisconsin, were thrown out of work. Young Bernhardt C. Ziegler, a local entrepreneurial dynamo who had organized his own full-fledged fire-insurance company while still in high school, set out to find a substitute industry for the townspeople.[2]

The West Bend Aluminum Company was founded with a group of businessmen (Stephen F. Mayer, Martin Walter, and Andrew and Edwin Pick of West Bend, Wisconsin; and Carl and Robert Wentorf, previously of Two Rivers, Wisconsin[3]), on 27 September 1911, by Bernhard Carl Ziegler, who was also president of the First National Bank, chairman of Gehl Brothers Manufacturing Company, president of the West Bend Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and director of the Wisconsin Manufacturers Association.[4] In 1920, West Bend Aluminum Company introduced the Waterless Cooker, a large aluminum pot with inset pans designed to cook an entire meal over one burner.[3]

B.C Ziegler supported, in October 1934, the Aluminum Credit Union, later, West Bend Employees Credit Union in 1963, in 1990 rebranded to Glacier Hills Credit Union, and transitioned to a community charter.[5]

The West Bend Aluminum Company manufactured aluminum cookware and electrical appliances, but also made two-stroke cycle engines, including outboard boat motors (Elgin, the first air-cooled outboard motor, sold exclusively through Sears, Roebuck and Co.[3]). Art Ingels used a surplus West Bend engine to power the first kart.[citation needed] Clayton Jacobson II used a West Bend 2-stroke motor to power the first stand-up Jet Ski. The engine division of West Bend was sold to Chrysler, then to Brunswick, and finally to US Motor Power.

In 1961, West Bend Aluminum Company changed its name to West Bend Company.[3]

In 2001, Regal Ware, Inc. of Kewaskum, Wisconsin, acquired certain assets of the West Bend Company. In 2003, Regal Ware sold the Small Kitchen Appliance Division of the West Bend Company to Focus Products Group LLC. The Small Kitchen Appliance Division is now known as West Bend Housewares.

Regal Ware retained the West Bend Cookware Division and product lines of the West Bend Company; and continues to manufacture the cookware products in West Bend and Kewaskum, Wisconsin, under the brand names Lifetime and Royal Queen. This represents more than 100 years of continuous manufacture of West Bend Cookware product lines in West Bend, Wisconsin.

The Cast Iron Luxury Living at River Shores campus was once home to the West Bend Aluminum Company.[6]

## Further reading

[edit]

* Rock, James M. A Growth Industry: The Wisconsin Aluminum Cookware Industry, 1893-1920. Wisconsin Magazine of History: Volume 55, Number 2, Winter 1971-1972 pp. 2-17 via: wisconsinhistory.org
* Mollet-Van Beckum, Janean. Washington County’s Aluminum Industry. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishers, 2009.
* Dorothy E. Williams, The Spirit of West Bend Wisconsin: Straus Printing Company, 1980.
* Krueger, Mary; Krueger, Lee (2008). The Town of West Bend, Est. 1846, Washington County, Wisconsin: A Collection of Histories, Stories and Memories of the Farms and Lakes, Volume 1. Mary and Lee Krueger.
* Krueger, Mary; Krueger, Lee (2008). The Town of West Bend, Est. 1846, Washington County, Wisconsin: A Collection of Histories, Stories and Memories of the Farms and Lakes, Volume 2. Mary and Lee Krueger.
* Janzen, Carol K. Kirchmayer. “The Urban Advance and Rural Retreat in Washington County.” Master’s thesis, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, 1995.[7]
* B.C. Ziegler and Company. The Ziegler Story, 1902-1977:75 Years. West Bend, WI: B.C. Ziegler and Co., 1977.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Early aluminum pioneers were 'frenemies'". Manitowoc County Historical Society. Retrieved 17 June 2025.
2. ^ "West Bend Co". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 17 June 2025.
3. ^ a b c d Archived Records of the Company
4. ^ Glasscock, Ann (August 2014). "The West Bend Aluminum Company". wi101.wisc.edu - Wisconsin 101. Retrieved 17 June 2025.
5. ^ "90th". Glacier Hills Credit Union. Retrieved 17 June 2025.
6. ^ "VIDEO - A family-friendly atmosphere at Cast Iron Luxury Living in West Bend". www.washingtoncountyinsider.com - Washington County Insider. 7 August 2023. Retrieved 17 June 2025.
7. ^ "Carol K. Bestland". Greater Milwaukee Today. 17 June 2021. Archived from the original on 17 June 2025. Retrieved 17 June 2025.

## External links

[edit]

* West Bend Company Records: 1911-1989 at Digital Collections, University of Wisconsin
* Bernhard Carl Ziegler, 1884-1946 and Edna Eickelberg Ziegler, 1896-1968 Papers: 1899-1968 at Digital Collections, University of Wisconsin
* Kusik, James P. (2008). "The West Bend Aluminum Company in the Age of Monopoly, Depression, and War". The Historian. 70 (2): 285–306\. ISSN 0018-2370.
* West Bend Aluminum Company (1927). "The Waterless Cooker Recipe Book". National Museum of American History. Smithsonian Institution.

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