Hatzel & Buehler: A Legacy of Excellence
“We should congratulate ourselves on being connected in any manner to this grand industry. A comparative infant (as industries go) of scarcely more than 25 years’ growth, it has grown to enormous proportions; and at its present rate of progress who can foretell its future? You can justly consider yourselves among the great Captains of Industry, for you move or help to move the wheels of commerce. It requires no great stretch of the imagination to predict that electricity will eventually be the sole motive power for those wheels.”
1904, John D. Hatzel Addressing the New York Electrical Association
One of the most significant phases of the late 19th Century was in the field of commercial electrification. In 1882, Thomas Edison opened the first publicly owned and operated electric generating station (the Electrical Illuminating Company) where John D. Hatzel and Joseph Buehler were employed as master electricians. Soon after the completion of this first commercial electrical generating plant, Mr. Hatzel and Mr. Buehler left to start the partnership of Hatzel & Buehler.
Hatzel & Buehler’s History Goes Back To The Dawn of the Electrical Industry, and Thomas Edison