San Francisco Call/1910/Telephone Resulted in Mill Purchase

Telephone Resulted in Mill Purchase

The purchase last week of the John R. Keim mills, Buffalo, by the Ford motor company, was the result of a new telephone installed on the desk of Henry Ford about four years ago.

On the old phone, the metal upright and the base were separate. On this new phone, the entire casing was one piece draw from a single sheet of steel. The new casing looked like a miniature rear axle housing.

If machinery could manufacture small one piece telephone casings, machinery could be made to make one piece rear axle housings. So Mr. Ford hunted up the manufacturer of the telephone casings. It was the John R. Keim mills of Buffalo. Mr. Ford handed them the telephone casing with the abrupt remark, "I want 200,000 castings just like that, except larger."