November 1, 1881 With $100,000 in capital (that's more than $2.6 million in today's dollars), Ranald T. McDonald...
Posted by Electric Works on Monday, November 1, 2021Monday, November 1, 2021 post by Electric Works on Facebook:
November 1, 1881
With $100,000 in capital (that's more than $2.6 million in today's dollars), Ranald T. McDonald organized the Fort Wayne Jenney Electric Light Company with the following officers: H. G. Olds, president; Perry A. Randall, vice-president; Oscar A. Simons, secretary; and R. T. McDonald, treasurer and general manager. The business would be purchased by the General Electric Company in 1898.[ See
Fort Wayne Electric Works]
December 24, 2022 post by Electric Works on Facebook:
24 Jun 1849 Allegheny County, Pennsylvania to Christmas Eve 24 Dec 1898 from Ranald Trevor McDonald memorial at Find A Grave. On Christmas Eve in 1898, Ranald T. McDonald, business magnate and general manager of the Fort Wayne Jenney Electric Light Company, died on a trip to Texas. JELC was put into receivership until the next year, when the General Electric Company of Schenectady, New York, acquired the plant and kept its story alive.
See the Ranald T. McDonald House.
November 3, 2022 post by Lindenwood Cemetery on Facebook:
Ronald T. McDonald - 1849 -1898
Final resting place - Section D - Lot 6
The name RTM Ventures honors Ranald T. McDonald, the early entrepreneur who first launched the Fort Wayne Jenney Electric Light Co. in the late 1800s.
Copied from Electric Works About page.- Photo posted June 20, 2022 by Electric Works on Facebook.
- Ranald T. McDonald by Tom Castaldi, local historian published November 7, 2013 in the History Center Notes & Queries blog.
A business magnate and promoter in the era of Edison and Tesla, McDonald was a key figure in the early years of the electrical industry in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He played a substantial role (as financier and/or manager) in dozens of corporations in several states besides Indiana. Millionaire and inventor, McDonald's death was widely mourned in 1898.
Copied from the book: Ranald Trevor McDonald: Captain of Industry: An electrical mastermind in the Victorian Era.The Jenney Electric Light Company (headed by Ronald T. McDonald) was formed in Fort Wayne, Indiana in November 1881, based on an electric arc lamp and dynamo invented by James A. Jenney. In 1888, the Thomson - Houston Company obtained a controlling interest and renamed the company as the Fort Wayne Electric Company. It manufactured several lighting systems, including the "Wood", which produced electric arc lighting and "Slattery", which was an induction system of alternating electric incandescent lighting. In 1893, the company went into receivership, and its shares were purchased in that year by the Fort Wayne Electric Corporation, also headed by McDonald. In 1899, the Fort Wayne Electric Works purchased the company, and it eventually merged with General Electric in 1911. "Fort Wayne Electric Company".
Beatty, John D., ed. (v. 1). History of Fort Wayne & Allen County, Indiana, 1700-2005. Evansville,IN: M.T. Publishing Company, Inc., 2006. Print. ISLI. Copied from page 4 of the Fort Wayne Electric Company collection in the INDIANA STATE LIBRARY Manuscripts Catalog.- Fort Wayne Electric Works at VintageMachinery.org is copied from The pictorial history of Fort Wayne, Indiana 1917 pgs 509-510.
- Lawsuit Fort Wayne Electric Company, Henry Olds, Perry Randall, and Ranald McDonald, 1887 at Case Western Reserve University Special Collections.