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Please Don't Quote Me

By Caralee Aschenbrenner

PART II —

Pasteur, Salk, Sabin, Flemming changed the medical world. Fulton, Ford, the Wright brothers altered ways of transportation. Bell and Edison gave voice to communication.

Millions made changes to a multitude of things that we take for granted today including the various items in the ice cream industry that Earl Prince studied and changed, some of them being sold and used throughout the world. The Multi-mixer was likely the most numerous of those items produced.

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Until that aptly named appliance was perfected, a malted milk machine, malts had to be made one at a time because it had only one spindle, the name of the stirrer that mixed the ingredients of the delicious ice cream drink. If there were several malts to an order, each one had to be made one after the other, separately. It took time. So in the mid-1930’s Earl Prince, Dixon, began tinkering with the multiple spindled machine with the help of two of his staff, MacDougall Brotherage and LeRoy Brown.

What needed doing besides the one-at-a-time thing? The fact was that the brushes and the commutator in the motor fouled up too often in the midst of an order. It was a nuisance to stop to exchange what needed changing and it became costly, especially if they had to be sent away for repair. How long this change took to correct to their satisfaction, reference doesn’t say, but when done the Multi-mixer had six spindles and the motor had no brushes or commutator to stop the machine. It was a wonderful invention that was eagerly accepted around the world ... No long line of a single malt machines behind the counter ... Just one (or two) glistening machines. So efficient.

It was at that time (Coincidence?) that the soon-to-be-famous “One-in-a-Million” Malt was developed ... Very thick, fudgy if you wanted chocolate, and none better. The Multi-Mixer could handle the job.

Prince Castle had its own machine shop to repair and engineer items for use in the business. It also built many of the machines and appliances for the business also, the Multi-mixer became just another. This occurred in the middle 1930’s. Source does say however that the manufacture of it was moved to Prophetstown by 1939.

Later malt machines with five, then three spindles were developed for the smaller retailer. Please the customer was Prince Castle’s objective. Malts, shakes, sodas and sundaes were added to the menu. Chili and hamburgers made up a winter selection because at first they were only open in the summer. Wanting to keep a steady work force (250 to 1,000) they were open all year round (see last week).

The Multi-mixer illustrated here was with an article in “Illinois History,” January, 1963, written by the grandson of Earl Prince, Lowell Snitcher, a teen student at Sterling High School for a series in the magazine whose theme was “Illinois Inventors and Inventions.” That and other material was provided by Sterling/Rock Falls Historical Society. Thanks, T.

During World War II Earl Prince, Jr. not only served as a captain in the Whiteside area Civil Air Patrol but the Prince Castle Manufacturing Division switched to making carburetors and fuel injector systems for the war effort. It was typical of the concern to help and promote their community.

One of the “inventions” dreamed up and made by the manufacturing department was a tight fitting metal cup to fit over the top of the malted milk container to be used on the mixer. In the way of the Prince Castle people, they wanted to use paper cups, disposable items, throughout. They needed a 16 oz. malt mixing cup of paper, not metal, so they applied to their paper cup salesman.

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The go-getter salesman changed the path of their business and the food server industry big time.

Lily Tulip Cup and Specialty Co., Chicago, yes, would supply an out-size, heavy duty paper malt cup to be used with the metal top for mixing the drink. They’d be delivered ASAP by the truckload. The salesman, Ray Kroc, decided to take a closer look at this customer out west in northern Illinois.

Kroc, at fifteen, had lied about his age in 1917 in order to join the Red Cross as an ambulance driver on the battlefields of Europe in World War I but by the time he’d finished his training the war had ended. Looking for a job, he became a piano player for a radio station. It was a night job so he looked, too, for some day work. The Lily Paper Cup/Specialty Company hired him and that’s how Kroc and Prince came to meet in the mid-1930’s. Their lives were changed and so was the food serving industry.

The two men were much similar in character—hard working, creative, cleanliness and efficiency being primary objectives . . . And low prices of their goods. Of course, you know by now that Ray Kroc was the man who made McDonald’s famous.

But that wasn’t until 1955 that that franchise began under Kroc’s direction. Before that he was selling Multi-mixers ... for seventeen years all over the U.S.

It was a successful connection, you can bet. By 1954 Kroc flew to California to better look at that territory to sell Multi-mixers, especially in San Bernadino where he’d heard of a small chain of hamburger restaurants that served a limited menu with disposable paper goods such as Prince Castles did. The brothers who owned the line, Dick and Maurice McDonald bought eight Multi-mixers and with burgers, fries, beverages, no tools, the take-out malts and shakes were a great addition. Ray Kroc went regularly to enjoy the cheerful aura of the place and began to imagine them all over the country—eight Multi-mixers whirring away at each!!

The McDonald brothers had just nine restaurants, the franchise at each cost $1,000. Kroc talked to the Macs about setting up selling franchises with himself as an agent receiving 1.9% in royalties, the brothers getting 0.5 in sales royalties.

“Franchise Realty Corp.” was organized and quickly grew to two hundred stores. The name was changed to “McDonald’s Corp.” in 1960. The next year, ‘61, the brothers sold the business to Kroc for 2.7 million with the stipulation that strict attention adhere to the established format and the brothers retain rights to the name. And the rest, as they say, is history!

Sometimes some chapters in history are ignored or overlooked which is what the McDonald’s claimed Kroc did in his autobiography. Kroc published in 1977. He stated that he was the founder of the McDonald’s franchise, giving them no credit for their part in the years before 1955 when he opened his stores in DesPlaines, Illinois, that year. A “Wall Street Journal” article in 1991 outlined the story.

That same year a program was presented at the Sterling/Rock Falls Historical Society, however, that stated when opening a McDonald’s Museum in OakBrook, Illinois, the organization had requested information of Kroc’s connection with Prince Castle and Earl Prince, because they had nothing before 1955. At that time (‘91) there a nice exhibit concerning the long time connection of Kroc and Prince telling about the Multi-mixer, paper goods sales, etc. From reading about both Prince and the McDonald’s, it is very clear that Kroc’s relationship with Earl Prince for over seventeen years was what taught Kroc about the fast food business, the creativity, inventiveness, methods and style that was/is shown in the McDonald’s chain. There was nearly twenty years of innovation at the Prince company before buying out McDonald’s. Perhaps, in other material in the Historical Society files there was more information but we vote for Mr. Prince and Kroc’s long acquaintance with him that gave him guidance, first and foremost!

There were so many incidents and events that both Earl Prince, Sr. and Junior instigated, so many organizations, clubs, boards and local, national events they both were involved in that it is too detailed to list here.

Mr. Prince, Sr., who had lived in Dixon since 1923, died in 1940, his obituary stating that until the end he was still vitally interested in civic affairs and due to his many and varied personal experiences he was a very interesting personality.

Earl, Jr., then still living in Sterling, the headquarters of Prince Castle Ice Cream and Manufacturing at his death in 1960 was known by his many close associates as social, athletic, creative, honest and caring. He’d had a Cessna 195 airplane that he used in, perhaps, a creative manner by taking a friend aloft and flying around northern Illinois to study traffic patterns, population density and enjoying a quiet flight but writing it off as assisting in the business of expanding Prince Castles. It was just an example of his positive attitude. His son, Earl R. Prince, took over direction of the company following his father’s death. The corporation was ultimately liquidated in 1983. The longtime Sterling headquarters was razed in the early 1990’s to make way for the large grocery store at this site, “County Market” in downtown Sterling. The Prince Castle store, however, remains in Dixon, now a BBQ/Chicken stop.

Those Prince Castles opened by friend, Walter Fredenhagen, in the northern suburbs of Chicago, were bought out or used by the “Cock Robin” franchise.

The guys who started a new idea are gone, as are some of their innovative stores. McDonald’s do continue. Even the first one in DesPlaines is there but it is different than today’s golden arched ones. Back in 1955 the arches were half circles, not the elongated “M’s” currently. They were positioned front to back on the roof, not side by side. And back then, too, they were known as “red and whites” for their color scheme inside and out ... Red and white everywhere. There are a few cement tables outside at the first McDonald’s created by Ray Kroc built for customers to use to bask in the history of the start of it all, after, that is, Prince Castle’s era. You served yourself there, too. It’s not at all like the California McDonald’s brothers, where there were carhops dressed as perky majorettes who delivered your order to your car window. It doesn’t matter how served, just pass me “One-in-a-Million.”

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