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- The following history is provided courtesy of Shellie Snell
of the Central Scientific Company, and is reprinted with permission.
I have added additional comments/information as footnotes. (R
Paselk, 1998)
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- © Richard Paselk 1998
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- CENTRAL SCIENTIFIC COMPANY
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- A BRIEF HISTORY
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- 1. FOUNDING
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- The company was incorporated in 1900 as Central Scientific
Company, located at 315 Wabash Avenue in downtown Chicago. It
was formed out of what was left of the Olmstad Scientific Company
after a disastrous fire in 1898, which killed the founder and
owner, W.A. Olmstad, and ten of his staff. Olmstad had been in
the science equipment business since at least 1889. Records are
sketchy, but another Chicago Company, the Central School Supply
House, may have been involved in founding Central Scientific.1
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- 2. EARLY YEARS
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- From the begining, Central Scientific manufactured and distributed
science teaching equipment for schools, colleges, and universities
by catalog mail order. 2The company put out its first
complete catalog dated 1903 (but issued in 1904), a larger one
in 1909, and a much bigger one in 1915. The trademark "CENCO"
was used from 1909 onwards, and is still in use today. By 1915
the company had moved several times, and was then in a facility
on East Ohio Street, where they stayed for twenty years. They
had also diversified, and were making and selling equipment for
industrial laboratories as well, including food testing.
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- 3. EXPANSION
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- Between 1915 and 1935 the company established itself as one
of the leading national suppliers of science equipment. Manufacturing
expanded considerably; the company had its own engineers and
drafting office since at least 1919, and they were early users
of chrome plating techniques (1929). An extensive network of
sales representatives was established. The company issued a regular
newsletter, the "Cenco News Chats," with their own
innovations and new products from 1932 onwards.
- {Cenco 1929 - a photo gallery}
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- 4. MIDDLE YEARS
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- In 1935, Central Scientific moved to a new purpose-built
facility ìin the green fields' at 1700 Irving Park Road.
Here they stayed until 1968, acquiring a series of surrounding
buildings in the later years. During World War II, part of the
manufacturing facility was turned over to war production, making
bomb sights for airplanes and fuses for large bombs. Following
the war there was a period of rapid expansion, during which branch
offices were opened in several states, and a number of companies
in related fields were acquired- Soiltest (civil engineering),
Refinery Supply (oil equipment), Atomic Labs (advanced education),
and Standard X- Ray (medical). The technical vaccum line of products
grew very rapidly. The company was also a major exporter of scientific
equipment (citation from the Secretary of State, ca. 1961). During
this period, the company reorganized as a holding company, CENCO
Instruments, Inc., and several specialized subsidiaries (including
Central Scientific Company). About 1965 the group went public
(NYSE). In 1968 they moved to a very large facility ( 1 million
square feet), the "CENCO Center." This was an old truck
plant on South Kostner Avenue. "Cenco" now claimed
to be the largest science equipment supplier world wide.
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- 5. DISASTER
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- After 1968, the company began having difficulties. It was
large and unwieldy, difficult to keep focused, had troubles with
computerization, and needed large investments to replace aging
production equipment. The medical activities were not doing well.
In 1974 a large scale inventory fraud was uncovered and two executives
went to jail. The companyís stock plummeted. The assets
of the group, including Central Scientific Company, were sold
off to competitors and other interested buyers. The educational
activity retained the name Central Scientific Company, and attempted
to continue manufacturing and selling as before. This was not
very successful.
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- 6. REBIRTH
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- In April, 1979, Central Scientific's assests and activities
were acquired by two business men from Buffalo, NY. They already
had a successful track record with an earlier Buffalo based company.
They incorporated a new company with CENCO assets, organizing
it along similar lines. Only physical science equipment for schools
and colleges was to be sold, with an emphasis on catalog-based
distribution. A thorough, efficient computer system was installed
to maintain business control. The new Central Scientific gradually
recovered customers. From 1985, a job-shop based production was
revived to fill the holes in the program left by the loss of
the old proprietary products. Many of the old designs were re-engineered
and used.
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- 7. EXPANSION AGAIN
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- In 1992, the decision was made to expand the product offering
for high schools to a full line, including life sciences. At
the same time, a need was felt to become more specialized in
marketing to post-secondary customers. To accomplish this, the
company was subdivided into two divisions- Secondary and College-
and two completely new catalogs were created and issued in 1993.
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- With the current editions of the catalogs, it is just 94
years since Central Scientific put out its first edition. We
are looking forward to repeating the success that it enjoyed.
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- 1 According to Childe [Child, Ernest. The Tools
of the Chemist. Reinhold Publishing Corporation, New York
(1940) pg 202.] "The Central Scientific Company . . . purchased
the scientific department of the Central School Supply Company,
formerly Alfred A. Robbins Company, who had taken over a similar
departement of the National School Furnishing Company [founded
in 1871]."
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- 2 Frank Aronson joined the company in 1904. "Aronson
had long experiance in the manufacture of scientific supplies,
having conducted his own shop, where he had manufactured much
of the apparatus sold by the many school supply houses."
Ibid.
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- © R. Paselk
- Last modified 5 August 2000
