PEORIA TYPEWRITER CO

Description

The founding father of Peoria Typewriter Company was Arthur H. Kellstedt who was born on Oct. 6, 1887 in Burlington, Iowa. After leaving the 5th grade, he started his sales career selling soap door to door in Burlington. As his sales skills matured, he branched out to start selling lamps for the Alladin Lamp Company at the 1912 Dallas State Fair. During the fair, a Remington Typewriter Company district manager overheard Arthur selling lamps and was so impressed with his salesmanship he offered him a job selling Remington typewriters. Arthur took the job and began selling Remington typewriters in the Texas pan handle. Sometime between 1913 and 1914, Arthur took the manager’s job at the Remington branch office in Galesburg, Illinois. In late 1914, Arthur was promoted to manager at the Remington branch office in Peoria and began his life-long career of supplying the Peoria area’s typewriter needs.After establishing a very good relationship with many Peoria businesses, Arthur and partner Joe Pavloski decided to establish their own business selling Woodstock brand typewriters. On December 1, 1920 Peoria Typewriter Company was established with Arthur handling the sales and Joe handling the service. Initially Peoria Typewriter only sold Woodstock typewriters, but as the quality and popularity of the Woodstock product line declined, Arthur wanted a better brand to sell. In 1936, Royal Typewriter Company made Arthur an excellent offer to become a Royal Typewriter dealer and Arthur accepted. In the following years, Peoria Typewriter became a major player in the typewriter sales and service business in Peoria.In the early years Peoria Typewriter’s product line centered around typewriters (Woodstock, Royal, Smith Corona, Olympia, etc.), but they also sold various other office machines including adding machines (Victor, Clary, RC Allen, etc.). PTC sold their first Hewlett-Packard Personal Computer in 1980 and their first HP LaserJet in 1983. As personal computer networks became a more important tool to businesses, the need for large, reliable servers became great. In 1993 PTC sold its first HP NetServer. As businesses continued through the 1990's to rely more on computers to run their day to day operations, computer resellers had to become more flexible in their product lines to meet their customer's needs. Again PTC answered the call in 1997 by becoming an IBM Business Partner for computer related products, and in 1999 by acquiring the Compaq line of computers, which later merged with the Hewlett Packard lines. PTC continued to expand their sales and service offerings, adding partners like Xerox, Brother, and others.

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