The Legend of the Rogers Spool and Wire Company
Rogers Spool and Wire Company was founded in 1848 by Johannes Ritter (b. 1809) and his twin sons John (Johannes) and Walter (Walthari) (b. 1835), as Ritter Barrel Company. The family had arrived in Arkansas in 1833, originally settling in Pulaski County as part of an organized German emigration society.
Woodworkers and coopers by trade, the family migrated northwest to Washington County and then on to Benton County to take advantage of the abundant supply of wood and the growing demand for secure food and supply storage as pioneers pushed into the American West in increasing numbers. In 1848 Ritter Barrel Company began operation in a timber structure near what is now the Southwest corner of Chestnut and First Streets in Rogers. At the time the area was just a small settlement adjacent to nearby Electric Springs and the state road running through eastern Benton County.
John II and Walter took over operation of the business from their father in 1850 as his health began to fail, embracing the entrepreneurial American spirit at just 15 years old.
Between 1850 and 1856 demand for barrels had begun to soften, but the St. Louis and Missouri Telegraph Company was making significant progress on its St. Louis to Kansas City line. Driven by Federal funding for the rapid expansion of telegraph communication lines, demand skyrocketed for the wooden spools used to transport the wire.
With a transcontinental communication system on the horizon, the brothers secured a small contract and began producing spools alongside barrels until spool production took over the facility entirely. Renamed Ritter Spool Company in 1852, the brothers were producing 2400 wire spools per year by 1854.
Anticipating the demand not just for spools but the copper conductor wire itself as the growing telegraph network stretched farther west, the brothers formed the Ritter Spool and Wire Company in 1858, constructing a two-story timber building to serve as spool warehouse and wire drawing facility to the east of their existing shop, utilizing the nearby Callahan Station of the Butterfield Overland Mail stage road to ship their goods.
In 1859 the brothers secured a US Patent for their “Ritter Wire Drawing Die” and were awarded a contract to supply wire for the Missouri and Western Telegraph Company. When the St. Louis to Fort Smith extension of the line arrived in Benton County in May of 1860 it assumed the distinction of being the only county in Arkansas with locally sourced telegraph wire.
In 1862, likely owing to their sturdy construction, the original shop and the wire works were commandeered for supply storage and used as gunpowder magazines by the Confederate Army as forces amassed at Pea Ridge. Both buildings were destroyed when a Union cannonball breached a window of the wire factory, igniting the stacks of gunpowder being stored in hijacked Ritter Co. barrels.
The brothers rebuilt their woodworking operation and wire facility in the 1870s and Ritter Spool and Wire prospered, as growing telegraph networks and the newly invented telephone increased demand on copper wire for transmission lines. Growing demand, however, created challenges filling larger orders of wire in the late 1870s as production in the current facility had reached capacity and freight shipments were limited.
In 1881 the St. Louis to San Francisco (Frisco) rail line was laid immediately to the east of the wire facility, and the train depot was constructed across Chestnut St. to the north. With the arrival of the train, the surrounding settlements officially became the City of Rogers, named after Charles Warrington Rogers, general manager of the Frisco Railway.
Rail freight access was a boon to business, and in 1882 the brothers rebranded as Rogers Spool and Wire Company, an homage to their new city and a hat tip to the man responsible for moving their wire across the country, who by that point they had befriended.
In 1885 they razed the 1870s structures and hired architect R.F. Sharp to design the brick structures seen today. By the early 20th century, the “Spool Building” had acquired its popular nickname owing to the stacks of spools that would amass along Chestnut St. in preparation for shipping on the Frisco line.
In 1923 a mural was commissioned to celebrate the 75th anniversary of RS&W Co. and the 88th birthday of the Ritter brothers. Painted by artist Richard Mutt, and framed by an Art Deco inspired border, it depicts the twins gazing intently toward the western sky against a backdrop of copper lines stretching into the distance, reflecting the artist’s interest in Avant Garde decorative design, the Mexican Muralism movement, and American Regionalism during the 1920s.
Following John’s and Walter’s deaths of natural causes in 1925 (the twins serendipitously shedding their mortal coils within hours of each other), Rogers Spool and Wire Co. continued operation for four years under the leadership of their sons John III and Walter II.
In 1929 a combination of factors, including waning demand for wire with the rise of citizens band wireless communication technology, construction of a nearby Bekaert Wire Industries factory by the Belgian wire giant, and finally the Wall Street crash, formed a perfect storm that led to the demise of many family-owned spool and wire producers in the heartland, including Rogers Spool and Wire which shuttered for good on October 30 of that year.
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