Maker Info
Colin B. Kennedy Company
Started in San Francisco around 1920 by telegrapher and radio enthusiast Colin B. Kennedy. Originally from Ontario, Canada, Kennedy had been transferred to San Francisco by the Federal Telegraph Company. It was there where he started building amateur radio equipment and broadcasting from his own station. Commercial radio manufacturing boomed in the early 1920s, and Kennedy's company was acquired in 1922 by Wagner Electric, a Missouri business eager to start its own radio operation. Kennedy was relocated to St. Louis and production shifted from sophisticated "ham" equipment to luxury consumer models. As for many other companies, the radio business failed to turn a profit, and it struggled through the late 1920s. The original Kennedy company was bankrupt as early as 1926, and a subsequent incarnation of the company closed in 1933.