The Ronan pioneer. [volume] (Ronan, Mont.) 1910-1970, 1917-09-14

One of the business rOmanceS Of
Montana men that never has been
told before is that Of George
A. Hughes, who decade ago
was dabbling with municipal cleo
trio light plants in the villages
Of eastern Montana, and who
today is president of the Hughes
Electric Heating Company of Chica-
go, the biggest manufacturer of elec-
trio heating equipment in the world,
and a self-made millionaire within
seven years.
George Hughes is the inventor and
manufacturer of the Hughes Electric
cooking range. Last year his COM
pany made and sold more electric
ranges than the combined output of
the IA other companies that COM
pete with him. His business is ex-
panding by leaps and bounds, finding
try of the globe. The Hughes ranges
are found in Montana by the thous-
and, and they are used in every other
state in the union. They are also
used extensively in Norway and
Sweden, where there has been a great
deal of water power development,
and in practically every other Euro
pean country. Many carloads of the
ranges have been shipped to South
America during the past year. The
little city of San Jo~e, in Costa RIGA,
has 700 Hughes ranges in it's homes
and hotels. In the past three years
Hughes has made his name and his
ranges known the world over
Was Newspaper Man.
George Hughes started his career
as a newspaper man, working in that
profession for several years in Min
neapolis and St. Paul on the daily
newspapers there. Eventually he
was sent to Fargo as state represent
tative of the st. Paul Dispatch, and
it was in that city that he had his
first experience in the electrical bust
ness. It happened that the public
utility corporation which furnished
electric light and power to Fargo
people was poorly managed con-
Germ. 1t not only gave Indifferent
service, but was charging the ex-
orbitant price of 80 cents per kilo-
watt hour for lighting current.
Hughes went before the city coun-
Gil and secured a competitive fran
chise. He interested his father,
Alexander Hughes, who for some
years had been legal representative
of the Northern Pacific in North Da-
kota, and some other local men in
the company which he organized to
take over the franchise. Hughes
company built it's plant and furnish
ed electricity at just half of the price
charged by the old company. The
competition was too much for the
first concern, which soon became de-
funct.
Called a Dreamer.
Hughes next move was the or
ganization of company for build
ing municipal electric lighting plants
and operating them under franchise
in the towns and cities of the Dako-
tas and Montana, and one of the
plants they installed in Montana was
at Glendive, which was constructed
in 1902. In this plant, the Glendive
Light & Power Company, he was in
Hughes, the latter finally taking over
control Of the property. A deal was
recently closed for the sale of this
pldnL TO announcer company.
George Hughes had in mind the
development of an electrically heated
cooking range, but when he talked
to electrical engineers concerning
such a device, he was called a dream
err and advised to devote his efforts
to something else. But he was per-
sistent and was continually expert
menting with the idea. In fact his
attempts to discover a principle of
heating units that would permit of
cooking by electricity took up so
much of his time that he spent prac-
tically all of his capital in expert
mentation and research work.
Makes First Range.
About eight years ago Hughes
went to Chicago with the idea OF
placing some electrical devices on
the market there as agent for the
manufacturers, but he simply found
himself unable to give up the cook
ing by electricity idea which obsessed
him, and before year had passed he
discovered a system which, he be-
lieved, had put him on the right
track.
There had been some small cleo
trically heated devices on the market
for dozen years before that time,
notably electric flat irons which were
more or less serviceable, but electric
al experts were of the opinion that a
flat iron, which needs to be heated
only to some 600 degrees fahrenheit,
was about as far as it was possible to
20. They stopped there for the rea-
J..