Fun! Food! Facts! Tappan Goes Atomic!

Bill Tappan started his company, the Ohio Valley Foundry Co., in 1881 by selling cast iron stoves door-to-door from a horse-drawn wagon. Known for high quality and craftsmanship, Tappan Stove Company has had several firsts in the history of cooking ranges. In the 1920’s they produced the first enamel-covered stoves (available in several pastel colors), and in the 1960’s Tappan came out with the first electric-ignition burners. The igniters used a principle discovered by brothers Pierre and Jacques Curie in 1880, whereby electricity is generated by compressing quartz crystals. Pierre was hubby to the much more famous Madame Marie Curie, she of the atomic glowing, and discoverer of radioactivity (not to mention the first person to win two Nobel prizes). In 1965, Tappan came out with a deluxe cooking center that was 30-inches wide, the first to combine a conventional range and a microwave together in a single unit. The new age had arrived.