Marathon Millwork
In 1945, Ben Kuebler agreed to sell the J.M. Kuebler Company. The wood sash and door factory located on the 1000 block of 3rd Street had a long history in Wausau. It had been established 65 years earlier by George Werheim, and since 1911 had been run by the Kuebler family (John Kuebler from 1911-1941, and his son Ben Kuebler 1941-1945). But after he had inherited it after his father in 1941, Ben Kuebler decided it was time for someone else to take over the company.
Modernization and New Management
A decade earlier, Joseph Usow had owned a clothing business in Milwaukee, and in 1941 he came up to Wausau to arrange for the purchase of some garments. While in Wausau, he saw a business opportunity in a closed rubber factory, which had closed a few months prior due to crippling labor relations and had been seized by the City of Wausau for unpaid taxes. Usow purchased the rubber company, reopened it as Marathon Rubber, and moved to Wausau to oversee the venture.
In 1945, Usow saw another business opportunity in the Kuelber Company. World War II had caused most new building projects to be put on hold, but Usow recognized that there would likely be a tremendous building boom with the resumption of peace. And so he approached Ben Kuebler about buying his family's factory. But while Joseph Usow correctly saw the advantage to owning a window and door company in the postwar years, the business he had just purchased was in need of some modernization.
When Usow purchased the firm there was a series of buildings, all quite run down, and horses were used to move lumber from place to place. Most of the plant buildings had dirt floors and the few machines on hand were run by belts and pulleys from a central line shaft. And so new investment was made in infrastructure over the next few years. Proper floors were laid down and remodeling was done to the facilities, including joining the two main buildings with a new mid-section addition. The horses continued to be used for the time being, while the renovations were started, but were fazed out in 1950.1
Although this process was started by Joseph Usow, it would be continued by his sister Bernice Cohan, after his death in 1947.2 Like Joseph, Bernice had been a Jewish immigrant who fled to the United States from Russia after the 1918 Russian Revolution. Although she initially appeared to be following her doctor father's footsteps and had attended medical school in Siberia, in the United States it became clear that she shared her brothers aptitude for business. And it was largely under Bernice's leadership that the modern Marathon Millwork was created.
The modernization program under the Usow/Cohans took the company from 12 employees in 1946, to 135 in 1949. Some buildings were replaced while others were repaired and modern equipment installed within, and soon a catalog of standardized the products were being produced. Some of the management team inherited from the Kuebler days helped a great deal in the modernization process, in particular Anton Torzewski and Paul Koebke were cited as being "instrumental in helping the new management when it took over." In addition, a new generation of professionals such as Sidney Winnig and Bernice's son Herbert Cohan rose to the challenge. Together, they helped make J.M. Kuebler emerged a leading modern wood window manufacturer in the industry.4
"The Silent Giant"
Over the course of the 1950s, the old Kuebler factory had been reborn as a modernized, competitive manufacturer. The new business emerged as one of the leading
Further changes were made to reflect its new situation during the 1960s--changes no longer intended to modernize, but to help the company continue to grow. In August 1960, company decided to change its name would be changing from the J.M. Kuebler Company, to “the Marathon Millwork Corporation” In her statement announcing the change, Bernice Cohen noted that the business had moved beyond the local origins of the company to become one of "the largest exclusive millwork manufactures and distributors in the Middle West." Furthermore, the new name "would enhance the corporate image, be suited for advertising and more adequately identify the company."5
By the mid 1960s, the wood windows and doors produced under the Marathon Millwork brand continued to grow. It never surpassed the other wood window companies in Central Wisconsin, but it had become an important force in the building industry.
One Milwaukee writer dubbed the Marathon Millwork, "the Silent Giant of the Building Industry" after its showing at the Milwaukee Parade of Homes."6 Marathon Millwork naturally adopted the evocative phrase as part of that brand.
Marathon Industries and Decline
In 1966 the company was merged with the other Usow/Cohan company, “Marathon Rubber Products” under the wider umbrella of Marathon Industries, Inc.7 This was accompanied by an expansion of a warehouse and sales branch in Milwaukee for Marathon Industries.8
The 1960s also saw considerable changes to Marathon Rubber's business. It shifted from primarily government contracts towards recreational clothing. By the mid 1960s, everyone from school patrol guards to the Green Bay Packers and New York City policemen were using Marathon Rubber products to keep dry.9
But while the rubber products side of Marathon Industries was thriving, by the end of the 1960s, a decline in building caused problems for the millwork side of the business. The loss of longtime figures in the building, such as former vice-president and manager Sid Winnig in 1969, complicated the situation. By 1971, the Cohans decided to liquidate the millwork and focus on the more profitable rubber products.
Much of Marathon Millwork's manufacturing assets were sold to Weathershield Co. of Medford in 1971, and the remaining retail assets were dissolved by early 1972.10
The old Kuelber Building remained vacant throughout the 1970s, but was repurposed by Marathon Industries to be the home for a new subsidiary, Marathon Plastics Corporation. The new company moved into the old Millwork facilities in 1984 to produce a "low-priced, light line of rain-wear for work and sports." In the 1990s, the company relocated to Mosinee. After Marathon Plastics left the 3rd Street property, it again became a vacant warehouse in the late 1990s.
^ A photograph of the fire enveloping the old Werheim/Kuebler/Marathon Millwork buildings.
In the evening of February 9, 2002, a fire broke out on the vacant warehouse on 3rd Street. The blaze that engulfed the building, continued to burn into the night as hundreds of spectators gathered to watch the firefighters work to contain the fire. The blaze was so large that skiers on Rib Mountain stopped to watch the distant inferno.11
Many of the spectators undoubtedly wondered what exactly what the building had been used for in the last century. The newspaper coverage following the blaze noted that it had once been home to window and door factory owned by Werheim and later Kuelber, but it also mentioned that early in the fire, they had managed to remove boats and cars stored there.
Further reporting on the cleanup later in the week identified the facilities as being home to Marathon Millwork, which it described as a "garment manufacturer." Another article about the fire during the week noted that the owners had proved elusive to contact, and mentioned that at one point the warehouse had been used by the Stone Lumber Materials company.
Of course many did know the place's history, and remembered the windows and doors produced there. But in some ways the confusion over the company's legacy is fitting, given their reputation as the silent giant of their industry.
Sources
1. "Spotlight on Industry: Marathon Millwork Employes' Payroll Has Grown Rapidly." Wausau Daily Herald (1 Feb, 1964), 9.
2. Ibid.
3. "Mrs. Bernice Cohan" WDH (26 May 1976) 12.
4. "Spotlight on Industry: Marathon Millwork Employes' Payroll Has Grown Rapidly" WDH (1 Feb, 1964), 9.
5. “Kuebler Co. Changes Corporate Name” WDH (19 August 1960) 11.
6. "Spotlight on Industry: Marathon Millwork Employes' Payroll Has Grown Rapidly." WDH (1 Feb, 1964), 9.
7. “Marathon Millwork, Marathon Rubber Announce Merger.” WDH (22 January 1966), 3.
8. “Marathon Millwork Expands Milwaukee Operations” WDH (29 January 1966), 5.
9. Mike Moen. "Spotlight on Industry: Packers, New York's Police Wear Marathon Rubber Capes. WDH. (14 September 1963) 9.
10. “Marathon Millwork sold.” WDH. (4 April 1971), 3
11. Pat Peckham. "Warehouse fire battled" WDH. (10 February 2002) 1.