Biography of P. C. Burns; Findlay Glass & Carbon and Peru Electric Mfg. Co. established by Burns

A Quartet of Men Prominent in the Telephone Field

PETER COOPER BURNS, president of the American Electric Co., Chicago, started as a boy of 15 to make acoustic telephones at his father's home. At 16 he was employed by the Bell company as operator, and later as inspector, in the Chicago exchange. He worked on Bell apparatus in the factory of the Electrical Merchandise Co., was a traveling salesman for the firm afterwards known as Knapp Electric Works, and started the first electric supply agencies on the south side, Chicago, and in St. Louis. Mr. Burns has made a number of important inventions. He established and conducted the St. Louis Electric Supply Co., the Findlay Glass & Carbon Co., the Peru Electric Mfg. Co., the Laclede Carbon & Electric Co., and the American Electric Telephone Co., of Chicago. He became president of a number of telephone and toll line companies; owned the Rose & Rein Electrical Works at St. Louis; and built the Peru Porcelain Works for the manufacture of insulators and fuse blocks. He makes his home in Chicago and is a member of the Union League and South Shore Country clubs. He has long been well known to Independent telephone companies.

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