The evolution of a company - the evolution of the industry: The Mutschler to TriPac story.

Iron cook stoves began to be accepted after the 1820s, although even in the 1870s, cooking over open fires in the kitchen fireplace was still not uncommon. In 1876, the company that later spawned two manufacturers of kitchen cabinetry, Coppes, Zook & Mutschler, was founded in Nappanee, Indiana, as a manufacturer of wood dining and bedroom furniture and tables for "the office and home." The companies separated in 1914 into Mutschler Bros. Co. and Coppes Brothers & Zook (Coppes subsequently bought out Zook to become Coppes, Inc.; the company endures to this day as Coppes Napanee Co., a manufacturer of custom kitchen cabinetry).

As Mutschler, along with its "sister company" in the remarkable Indiana nexus of the 1920s, responded to the demand for kitchen cabinetry, it also became a leader in transferring the porcelain-enamel work surfaces common to early kitchen cabinets to what became extremely important products in the burgeoning kitchen "furniture" industry - the kitchen worktable. Its line of "Porce-Namel" tables with the "LAFLAT" top boasted in promotional literature to be "in a class of the higher grades of living and bedroom furniture." The line later was extended to include "Porce-Namel Table Cupboards," incorporating new, popular dish and broom cupboards "with three-coat enamel finish throughout."

In 1933, Mutschler Bros. introduced the first built-in cabinets under the "Porta-Bilt" banner. A premise behind the concept and the name was that homeowners would buy cabinets, install them in their homes, and then take the cabinets with them when they moved, a practice common in Europe to this day. Also prompting the line's development was the trend, starting around 1920, for built-in rather than free-standing cabinetry. The "Porta-Bilt" line of 23 cabinet bases, wall and tall utility cupboards were "engineered ... to fit almost any space (according to) the requirements of the purchaser (and) designed to sell portably, could be sold on an easy step-by-step basis, one section or as little as one piece at a time right off the floor." Retailers could stock and sell a few pieces or the entire line.

Following the hiatus of consumer manufacturing during World War II, and the impact of steel on the kitchen cabinetry market, Mutschler Bros. moved to become a manufacturer of custom cabinetry and accessories to "match any finish." In 1948 it began to market products exclusively through specialty retailers.

In 1955, R. C. "Dick" Chapman, secretary-treasurer of the company and a Mutschler son-in-law, and Richard "Dick" Behm of the Hardwood Plywood Manufacturers Association, met in the Blackhawk Restaurant in Chicago to discuss the future of factory-built wood kitchen cabinets.

As chronicled in The First Twenty Years: A History of the National Kitchen Cabinet Association, 1975, "They had reason for concern. In the 15 years up to that day, steel had grown from 8 percent of the market in new homes to 45 percent; wood had shrunk from 92 percent in 1940 to 55 percent in 1955, and only half of those (cabinets) were factory built. These were the glory days of Youngstown, Ohio, and the rich steel companies were making big waves for steel kitchens in the consumer press. ... Chapman ... turned over his place mat and started noting organizational guidelines and details. He penciled in a tentative name, 'National Institute of Wood Kitchen Cabinets,' and there ... the National Kitchen Cabinet Association was born - on the back of a place mat."

In its tradition of innovation, in the 1960s, Mutschler hired famed, trend-setting furniture designer Paul McCobb. His "Eurostyle" designs for kitchen cabinetry with aluminum extruded legs and cabinet dividers proved to be ahead their time, selling only in certain parts of the country.

The Mutschler legacy continued well into this decade. The company was acquired by American Standard in 1969, and then became part of Triangle Pacific in 1974 after this first of the "giant" cabinet companies had acquired Gregg & Son of Nashua, New Hampshire. The Mutschler Nappanee plant stopped making cabinets in 1987, although it provided Triangle Pacific with door and drawer fronts until 1993.