Historic Hood River
The Malleable Range
Notes
Sam, Paul and Laurence Blowers pose in front of their store. Someone was eager to erase the fourth person in the image.
The “Malleable Range” sign is a bit of a rabbit hole. The sign indicates they were a dealer for the Malleable Steel Range Company of South Bend, Indiana, not to be confused with the Malleable Iron Range Company of St. Louis, Missouri. Why did two range companies choose to use the word “malleable” in their names? Malleable iron is a cast iron which has been treated to make it less brittle. If you’ve ever seen a cracked casting you will understand why this feature would be attractive to a range purchaser.
Mitchell Wagons (and later, Mitchell Automobiles) came from the Mitchell-Lewis Company in Racine, Wisconsin.
We know the Blowers family had a long history running stores, starting with the A.S. Blowers Store and including a Skaggs United Store, part of a chain which became Safeway.
Kalley
In the early 1980’s we bought many old cookstoves from a man in town that were in need of being restored. Some were Malleable ones. There were folks that already had an old cookstove and John restored them too. He took all the nickel plated parts off, took them to Oregon Plating in Portland, sanded everything and repainted the body of the stove. It was a big project for him, but really enjoyed getting an old cookstove looking like new.
I’ve always liked those old stoves. He restored a Bridge, Beach and Company one with beautiful nickel grape clusters. That was my favorite one. When we had the grocery store in Odell, we had a cookstove on one of the end bases and would build displays around it.
L. E.
I just had the chimney cleaner come to my home today and he was telling about one of his previous clients. She was an elderly lady and her old cast iron stove had a crack in it. He talked her into getting a new one.
He installed a new stove, same brand as her old one, but of course much more modern, without a large crack.
She called him furious. Her fire wouldn’t burn. He drove out to check out what was wrong. Basically, the new stove didn’t have a crack in it to feed air to the fire and make it roar and burn hot. The new stove must have been ore malleable.
Linda Durrant
I have a 1916 South Bend Malleable Wood Cook Stove. Currently it resides in our summer kitchen (east porch room), and is connected to a chimney there. We would like to know (how) if we could lift the stove up and put some ceramic tile under it. We have no plans to fire it up, but enjoy looking at it and learning about its history. My question is: how much does this South Bend Malleable Wood Cook Stove weigh? May I send photos? I believe the stove has been sitting in the same spot for 110 years. It was purchased by the second owners of our 1893 Victorian. The second owners and their extended family members lived in our house from 1917 until 2007.