Published March 6, 2022
By Janet Gates Conover
An illustration of the Electrograph Public Address Systems from the 1929 Catalog. At the left, Desk Microphone, center, amplifier in wood cabinet with speaker above, and on the right, a standing microphone. (Illustration courtesy of the author.)
This is the first in a series of articles on Gates Radio.
The Gates Radio
Company, today GatesAir, is 100 years old this winter. Founded in 1922 by Henry,
Parker and Cora Gates, the company grew from a young man pursuing a hobby to
becoming the world’s leading manufacturer of radio and television broadcasting
equipment.
Henry and Cora Gates moved to Quincy, Illinois, in 1918 with
their only son, Parker, age 11, and lived in a rented bungalow at 2315 Broadway.
In the attic of this house, Parker began to build crystal radio sets that could
be ordered through the mail. Henry, a food-products specialist, was hired by
United Cereal Mills to be plant superintendent of the Egg-O-See Cereal Company.
When the Egg-O-See plant closed, the family moved to Cereal, PA, where Henry was
hired to manage Jersey Cereal Mills.
The family was asked
to reside in the president’s house located halfway up a hill from the factory and
office complex. Henry soon found out a strike was looming, and the president was
afraid to live in his newly built residence.
Henry was sent to Pittsburg on business to meet with
representatives of the Westinghouse Corporation. He took Parker along and the
two of them spent several hours at KDKA, the first radio station to go on the
air in the United States. That night on
their way back home,
Parker said, “I want to start a radio company.” Henry tucked
that away in the back of his mind.
When strike negotiations became very tense, Henry and his
family were threatened. With the help of a trusted employee, Henry arranged for
them to leave in the middle of the night. “Draw the curtains on the car, and be
silent,” Henry ordered. Parker sat trembling in the back seat of the car as
they drove down the hill with the lights off and pulled away from the Jersey
Cereal Mills. He held his little fox terrier with one arm, and his newly built crystal
set with the other.
When they were several miles away Cora asked tearfully,
“Where are we going?”
“Back to Quincy, Illinois,” Henry responded.
The family moved into a rented apartment at 907 Vermont Street.
Parker took a job after school at the S. S. Kresge Company where he worked in
the electronics and hardware department; he saved his money to purchase parts
and began to design and build his own radios.
He made an exceptionally good radio receiver and showed it
to his father who said, “Why not build them for others.” Henry was a Rotarian
and at a meeting announced, “My son can build a radio that is better than any
radio you can buy in any store.” He came away from the meeting with orders for
seven radios—and that was the start of the Gates Radio Company. Parker was 14
years old and still in high school.
The kitchen pantry became “the radio room” where the radios were
built. In 1923, Henry resigned his position as Sales Manager with the Wall Pump
and Compressor Company and rented a second-floor business location at 115½
North Fifth Street.
Henry and Cora operated the business during the day and
Parker joined them after school. Henry managed the business, taught Cora how to
keep books and Parker designed and made the radios and equipment. Two early radios
were popular: the Echophone that sold for $75.99, and the Electra for $200.
In 1925, the company became
The Gates Radio and Supply
Company
and a wholesale dealer of radios, tubes and parts, plus, Parker
would continue to make custom-made radios. Clinton Norris was the first
employee hired. “He sold the radios door to door,” said Parker Gates in an
interview, “and they sold like hot cakes.”
Parker graduated from
high school in June of 1926. His father offered to send him to college or take $5,000 from his savings and invest that
money in the company and Henry would teach him all that he knew about business
management. Parker decided on the second offer.
That same year Parker Gates designed the transcription
turntable, a technology ‘first’ for the infant radio industry, plus equipment to amplify speeches and music for
outdoor events.
Parker and Henry Gates went to Chicago and attended a
convention where movie picture equipment was displayed. After assessing the
possibilities, they decided to enter this field. Parker went right to work
designing the Gates Electrograph, “a non-synchronous disc-sound machine made up
principally with amplifiers and speakers that were placed behind the screen.”
It provided mood music replacing the old theater organ or piano. It sold for $630.00.
Motion Picture Magazine
ran an article about the Gates Electrograph
and orders came in from all over the United States and several countries.
Then came the
Motio-tone, a system of 16-inch sound discs connected with the film that sold
for $1,625. “It was not the fool-proof machine that came out later,” Parker
said. “Often the cow mooed right in the middle of the soprano’s aria, and this
in itself brought a lot of laughs.”
In early 1929, Gates
Radio moved across Washington Park to a three-story building at 115 North 4th
Street that gave the company more floor space. That same year, a new condenser
microphone was added to the line. Its sale was instantaneous.
The 1920s closed with the stock market crash and a time of
uncertainty swept across the country as the depression years began. However, Henry,
Cora and Parker Gates faced the future with a determination to succeed. There were
positives: the business had grown, and they were in a larger building. The
decision was made to continue to make and sell motion picture equipment but
spend equal time designing and manufacturing equipment for the radio broadcast
industry. Within three years, motion picture products would be phased out, and
the Gates Radio Company would dedicate their business entirely to the design
and manufacture of broadcasting equipment.
Janet Gates Conover and her husband, Joe, are life members of the
Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County. This article is based on Gates
Radio Company research and documents, interviews with her father, Parker Gates,
and family oral history and letters.
Sources:
Gates, Parker.
Brief
History of Gates Radio Co.,
Years 1922-1929
.
Quincy, IL. 1957.
Multiple
Interviews with Parker Gates.
With Janet Gates Conover, daughter. Some recorded. 1973 through 1986.
A Glance
Back.
History of
Gates Radio Company and current equipment. Author unknown. Quincy, IL. 1969.
Hattwick, Richard E.,
The Gates Radio Company.
The Journal of Business Leadership, Volume
2, Number 2. American
National Business Hall of Fame, Western
Illinois University, Macomb, IL 1989.
Bradshaw,
Bill
.
“Gates Pioneer in Talking
Pictures — First to bring sound to screen of silent movies.”
Quincy Herald-Whig
. 11 April 1971.
A 70-Year
Legacy of Innovation.
Newsletter. Harris Allied Broadcast Division.
1992.
Gates Radio and Supply
Catelogue. September 1926.
Gates Radio and Supply
Catelogue. 1929.
Hilbing, Jack.
Cereal Company grew to be largest in
U.S.
Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County. 10 April 2016.
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