“The American adventure is a continuing process. As one milestone is passed, another is sighted. As we achieve one goal…we raise our sights….It is right that Americans are always improving. It is not only right, it is necessary. From need comes action, as it did here in Independence Hall.” — President Gerald Ford, Bicentinial Speech, July 4, 1976, Philadelphia

Entrepreneurs are revered more in the US than in any other country. And it’s no wonder. Owning a business embodies the independence, innovation, and progress that is at the heart of the American Dream. To celebrate this Independence Day, we’ll be sharing the stories of entrepreneurs who pioneered the products we commonly associate with summer and the Fourth of July. First up: the backyard barbecue grill.

How Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and a Couple of Presidents Brought You That Delicious Smoky Flavor

Cavemen may have had fire, but they didn’t have charcoal grills. Those ubiquitous bags of Kingsford charcoal? They wouldn’t exist without Model T Fords. In the 1920s, Henry Ford commissioned a relative, E.G. Kingsford, to set up a sawmill and chemical plant to convert the wood left over from making cars (paneling, dashboards, wheel spokes, etc) into useful products like charcoal. Charcoal briquettes had been around since the 1890s, but Ford popularized them by shipping a railcar of them to his dealers along with each railcar of automobiles. During the Depression, when auto sales dropped, dealers were told to start selling briquettes in earnest. Thus, for decades, Ford dealerships also sold bags of Ford Charcoal and grills. They were actually one of the only places you could buy briquettes until Ford Charcoal was sold in 1951 and re-named the Kingsford Company (which was later sold to Clorox).

Ford was an avid camper and would often take road trips with his good friends Thomas Edison, John Burroughs, and Harvey Firestone. They dubbed themselves the Vagabonds. The trips were elaborate, especially for the 1910s and 1920s: they often had special kitchen trucks, custom grills, strings of electric lights, a couple chefs, and a caravan of 20+ cars. The Vagabonds’ summer adventures were widely publicized, especially when they were joined on the weekends by President Harding or Coolidge, and stirred a national movement for motor touring and camping. As a result, Henry Ford helped popularize grilling — both with the car, which encouraged more outdoor picnics, and with the briquette, which replaced messy wood in cooking fires. It wasn’t until grills became more user-friendly, however, that backyard barbecues became a major American pastime.

Sputnik, a Symbol of Americana

In 1951, as Americans were moving to the suburbs en masse, backyard entertaining became more popular as metal braziers (upright coal-burning boxes) replaced barbecue pits. However, the flames on these early grills were uneven and uncontrollable, the slightest wind blew ashes on your steak, and rain was a deal breaker. “I was smoking up the neighborhood and burning up half of what I cooked. What was worse, I had to spend all my time away from the bar, standing there with a squirt gun to put out the fire when the grease hit the hot coals,” said future-grill inventor George Stephen.

So Stephen, an engineer at Weber Brothers Metal Works in Chicago, devised a solution. He took one of the large, metal Coast Guard buoys he’d made at work and cut it in half. He took the pieces home and used them to make a rounded cooking bowl with a dome-shaped lid. He added three legs to the bottom, a handle and some holes to the top, and George’s Barbecue Kettle was born. Though, his neighbors called it Sputnik because it looked like the Russian satellite. Even though his kettle grill cost more than the average brazier ($50 vs $7), it worked much better and business took off. In the late 1950s, Stephen bought out the Weber Brothers factory and started manufacturing grills full time.

A Lawnmower Salesman and Some Pet Fish Cause Sales to Skyrocket

In 1970, the Lawn and Garden department of a Chicago Montgomery Ward store was the top seller of Weber grills. Stephen showed up incognito at the store to investigate, hoping to discover the secret of their sales success. He feigned an interest in a riding lawn mower and approached the salesman, Mike Kempster. However, the store was having a massive guppy sale (yeah, those small pet fish that eat their young but still manage to multiply like crazy), the store was packed, and Kempster was swamped. He took down Stephen’s address and promised to demonstrate the mower at Stephen’s house the next day.

Stephen was surprised when Kempster actually showed up the following day, mower in tow, and gave him a demonstration. He was so impressed with his skill and dedication that he offered Kempster a sales job on the spot.

Kempster was responsible for expanding Weber’s market outside the Midwest and got their products distributed nationally, one live grilling demo at a time. He became Executive Vice President in 1990. Stephen was proud of Weber being a family company, and though he passed away in 1993, 11 of his 12 children and 2 of his grandchildren have important roles within the company, including his son James, the CEO. Today, over 82% of US households have grills, and a large part of that is due to Ford, Stephen, and Kempster’s efforts.

Photos courtesy of Stacyjclinton, Henry Ford Heritage Association, and Weber.

Tags: Fourth of July

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