Bold has been in our blood since day one. In this edition of the Kohler Independence Series, find out what it took for John Michael Kohler to arrive in America and become the independent business owner who started Kohler Co.
To fully understand the bold and independent nature of company founder John Michael Kohler, we need to start early in his life. This is more than a story of a man starting a company; it’s a story of strength, courage and resiliency in the face of challenges.
The challenges in John Michael’s life hit early, heavy and often. Three of his siblings didn’t survive past infancy. His mother died when he was just 9. His father remarried a year later, and the family fled their remote village in the Austrian Alps for the promise of new opportunities in America.
Their immigration to America was less a journey than an epic endurance test of several months: more than 600 miles by horse and carriage, and on foot from Austria to France; a 54-day transatlantic voyage among hundreds of other steerage passengers in the cargo hold of a ship; another 1,200 miles from New York to what is now St. Paul, Minnesota. Finally, John Michael and his family reached the farm belonging to his uncle, who immigrated 10 years earlier.
Over the years, John Michael and his growing number of siblings (13 in total) worked to clear land and develop a thriving dairy enterprise. Dairy farming and cheesemaking had been in the Kohler family roots for generations in Austria. But John Michael, at age 18, had different ideas for his legacy. This was the budding of the bold, independent and opportunistic spirit that propelled John Michael to start what we know today as Kohler Co.
Lillie and Jacob Vollrath
But John Michael, at age 18, had different ideas for his legacy. This was the budding of the bold, independent and opportunistic spirit that propelled John Michael to start what we know today as Kohler Co.
With a passion for business, arts and community service, he left the family farm and ventured to the rapidly growing city of Chicago. He went to college at night and started working as a traveling furniture salesman by day, covering territory that included most of the Lake Michigan shoreline north of Chicago.
On a sales trip to Sheboygan, Wisconsin, John Michael called on a local business owner named Jacob Vollrath. The visit changed everything for John Michael, who fell in love with and married the businessman’s daughter, Lillie Vollrath. Welcomed into the family, he moved to Sheboygan and began working for the Vollrath-owned Sheboygan Union Iron and Steel Foundry.
After two years on the job, John Michael’s independent spirit drove him to make a daring investment. On Dec. 3, 1873, the 29-year-old and his business partner Charles Silberzahn bought Vollrath’s iron foundry business for $5,000. At the time, it was an investment as risky as it was pricey.
In 1873, the U.S. was in the midst of the most severe financial depression of the 19th century, forcing thousands of companies into bankruptcy. But for John Michael, investing everything he had in a business he could call his own was the only way to fulfill his bold ambitions.
Our founder’s resilience, confidence and vision kept the Kohler name in business during the company’s infancy. But, even after the many challenges John Michael faced on the long road from Austria to Sheboygan, the most intense obstacles were yet to come.