Curtis Mathes Corporation

Curtis Mathes, Inc.

Company type	Private
Industry	Electronics retail, Television manufacturing
Founded	1919
Founder	Curtis Mathes Sr.
Fate	Filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1992; ownership transferred to Enhanced Electronics in 1988
Headquarters	Frisco, Texas , United States
Area served	North America
Key people	Curtis Mathes Jr. (former chairman)
Products	Televisions, electronics retail, LED lighting solutions
Number of employees	Approximately 50 (1988)
Parent	Enhanced Electronics (post-1988)

Curtis Mathes, Inc. is a North American electronics retailer originally headquartered in Garland, Texas, focusing on private label electronics and repair services. The company produced its own television sets in Athens, Texas, until July 31, 1982. A decade later, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to reorganize its operations, enabling continued business activity while repaying creditors from future profits. Today, the headquarters are located in Frisco, Texas.

Famous for advertisements promoting its televisions as "the most expensive television set in America, and darn well worth it," Curtis Mathes is recognized for pioneering extended warranties in the electronics retail sector.Template:Failed verification

Initial Offerings

The origins of Curtis Mathes trace back to 1919 with the establishment of Connor and Mathes, a company manufacturing and selling automobile and tractor components. By the late 1920s, the business expanded into air conditioning products. It also produced wooden cabinetry and later diversified into furniture manufacturing, acquiring Hub Furniture in 1942. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, its principal product line consisted of electric fans—ranging from various designs integrated into custom cabinets to permanent window fans. In the early 1950s, the product range grew to include central or attic fans that drew air from open windows into attics to improve home cooling.

With the commercial introduction of compressors in the late 1940s, Curtis Mathes' Fort Worth facility began producing a broad array of compressors suitable for automotive and building applications. Leonard L. Northrup Jr. emerged as a key distributor of Curtis Mathes products and pioneered an add-on air conditioning unit initially installed in Cadillacs.

By the end of the 1940s, Curtis Mathes had also ventured into radio manufacturing.

Television Manufacturing

Founded in 1957, Curtis Mathes Corporation quickly entered the television market by establishing manufacturing plants across Tarrant and Dallas counties as well as Athens, Texas, eventually consolidating most production at a large facility in Athens. Between 1968 and 1988, it was among only three fully American-owned electronics manufacturers alongside RCA and General Electric.

In the late 1960s, Leonard L. Northrup Jr. acquired a controlling stake in Donmark Corporation—a producer of residential heating and air conditioning equipment—from his longtime associate Curtis Mathes Sr., as Curtis Mathes shifted focus toward electronics.

File:Norman & Vi Petty Rock & Roll Museum, Clovis, NM (32382902401) (2017-01-17 by Greg Gjerdingen).jpg

File:Norman & Vi Petty Rock & Roll Museum, Clovis, NM (32463952856) (2017-01-17 by Greg Gjerdingen).jpg

Curtis Mathes Stereophonic High-Fidelity Music Center displayed at Norman Petty Rock & Roll Museum

Over subsequent years, Curtis Mathes developed modular televisions featuring interchangeable components such as tubes, tuners, and picture tubes designed for rapid replacement during warranty repairs. These parts utilized snap-in connectors secured by brackets rather than solder or screws. The company aimed to create televisions that minimized costly repairs and was an early adopter of offering a four-year warranty covering picture tubes, parts, and labor.

By the mid-1970s, with advances in solid-state technology, Curtis Mathes had engineered televisions composed of just eleven components: seven circuit boards, a tuner, a picture tube, a transformer, and the cabinet itself. Repair technicians carried all necessary electronic parts on service calls, which typically lasted no longer than twenty minutes. In-home service fees were $20 while repairs conducted at service centers were complimentary.

Televisions supplied for rental services like ColorTyme were occasionally marketed under the "Rutherford" brand.

After Curtis Mathes Sr.'s passing in 1977, his son Curtis Mathes Jr. assumed chairmanship and became the company's public representative through television commercials until his untimely death in 1983 due to a fire aboard Air Canada Flight 797 at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

Following this period, the company experienced a downturn that saw employment shrink from a peak of approximately 5,000 workers across seven manufacturing sites to roughly fifty employees by 1988 when ownership transferred to Enhanced Electronics. Concurrently, GE/RCA's television division was sold to Thomson SA of France.

For some time thereafter, Curtis Mathes retailed products sourced from manufacturers such as Matsushita (Panasonic), Pioneer Corporation, Thomson SA, Samsung, Daewoo, Toshiba, among others.

2000s

During the transition from the 1990s into the early 2000s, Curtis Mathes operated as a proprietary brand for the Kmart discount retail chain. By the end of 2007, the Curtis Mathes name had resurfaced with products available through various discount outlets, including Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Meijer, and Target. Starting in 2013, the company broadened its product range to include LED lighting solutions.

External links

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