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A
man with poor eyesight but remarkable vision. |
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It started as simply
as this: In 1900, a young man bent on replenishing his educational
funds so he could complete his last year of law school set out
to sell lamps in what is now Kingfisher, Oklahoma. He had first
encountered the lamp that would change the course of his life
in a drugstore window in Alabama. Plagued with such poor vision
he sometimes had to ask classmates to read aloud to him, the
brilliant light from that window stopped W.C. Coleman® in his
tracks. He went in to inquire about it and discovered he was
able to read even the small print on a medicine bottle by this
light. |
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The lamps had mantles, not wicks,
and were fueled by pressurised gasoline instead of coal oil.
Their light was clean and white. And when Coleman® heard the
company was looking for salesmen, he used the funds he'd accumulated
to buy inventory. He could sell these lamps in a flash to merchants
who wanted to keep their shops open in the evening.
As it turned out, he couldn't sell even one. Merchants in Kingfisher
had just been stung by a lighting salesman with a less-than-stellar
product. Shopkeepers would not be swayed. So, using the ingenuity
and resourcefulness that would later build his company, W.C.
decided to sell a lighting service instead of the lamps themselves.
He drew up contracts with a "no light, no pay" clause and, with
the risk removed, customers signed up.
Soon Kingfisher was a beacon on the prairie. The service eventually
expanded to cities as far west as San Diego and Las Vegas. In
1902, Coleman® relocated to Wichita, Kansas, reasoning it would
be about the center of his potential territory. As it turned
out, his territory would one day come to encompass the world.
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