P. C. Burns Obituary

[Trade Journal]

Publication: Telephony

Chicago, IL, United States
vol. 92, no. 13, p. 40, col. 1-3

"P. C." Burns, Pioneer Independent

Manufacturer, Dies.

Peter Cooper Burns, chairman of the board of directors of the American Elec­tric Co., Inc., Chicago, and the dean of the Independent telephone manufacturers, passed away at the Wesley Hospital, Chi­cago, on March 22. The immediate cause of death was peritonitis which followed an operation for appendicitis. Mr. Burns was 62 years of age. Interment was at Fond du Lac, Wis., on March 25.

Mr. Burns started in the telephone busi­ness when very young for, as a boy of 15, he made accoustic [sic] 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 the Knapp Electric Works, and started the first electric supply agencies on the South Side, Chicago, and in St. Louis. 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 Independent telephone and toll line companies in the middle '90's; owned the Rose & Rein Electrical Works at St. Louis and built the Peru Porcelain Works for the manufacture of insulators and fuse blocks.

For the past 45 years Mr. Burns was one of the most active men in the tele­phone business, having been instrumental in bringing about many of the improve­ments in telephone apparatus and service which have been adopted as standard in the manufacture of modern equipment. He first designed the standard compact magneto telephone cabinet; is said to have been the first to make and market the now universally-adopted concealed binding-post receiver; he made the first commercially successful self-restoring drop switchboard, known throughout the telephone field as the Burns “Express.” He is said to have been the first to make and sell the present standard type of desk stand, and to design and sell the adjustable head-band receiver universally used for switchboard and radio work.

In 1900 Mr. Burns marketed the “har­monic” type of ringing system, and was the first to make and sell the removable lever switch-hook and the granular carbon “long distance” transmitter. He is respon­sible also for many other important telephone devices, but the foregoing serves to indicate his experience and position as one of the leading pioneers in the telephone business. He served as director of the national association among his other activities in the field.

Mr. Burns turned his attention to the manufacture of telephone apparatus in the 1880’s. He was engaged in the business of supplying equipment to Independent companies several years before the United States Supreme Court sustained the Bell patent, and at that time was making dry batteries at Kokomo, Ind. He decided to carry on the fight and sent circulars broad­cast throughout the Middle States offering to supply in any quantities “telephones ex­actly like those used by the Bell company.” According to the records, one of these circulars fell into the hands of Eugene L. Brown, a leading druggist at Noblesville, Ind., who organized a speaking company there. Brown and Burns got together and after many difficulties produced a switch­board that was installed and started the Independent telephone movement in the state of Indiana.

P. C. Burns was a fighter who throve on opposition, and he eventually had a manu­facturing organization under the name of the American Electric Telephone Co. in operation in Chicago that bore an impor­tant part in the early days of telephone competition.

Many of the men who have achieved prominence in the Independent telephone field received their training and experience while associated with "P. C.,” as he was familiarly known. J. G. Ihmsen, now general manager of the Up-State Tele­phone Association of New York, was an official of the American Electric company a number of years.

Mr. Burns never married and is survived by a brother, James A. Burns, of Fond du Lac, Wis., and a sister, Mrs. M. F. Mar­tindale of Nashville, Tenn.