George Kingston (March 22, 1863 – February 21, 1946) was the inventor of the Kingston

carburetor A carburetor (also spelled carburettor) is a device used by an internal combustion engine to control and mix air and fuel entering the engine. The primary method of adding fuel to the intake air is through the venturi tube in the main meteri ...

in 1902, in

Kokomo, Indiana Kokomo ( ) is a city in Indiana and the county seat of Howard County, Indiana, United States. It is the principal city of the Kokomo, Indiana Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Howard County, the Kokomo-Peru CSA, which includ ...

Biography

Kingston was born in Michigan. He married Alina Vincent in Ovid, Michigan, and had one son, Ralph, born December 25, 1905. The Kingstons bought the Seiberling Mansion in Kokomo in 1914, which was later the location of

Indiana University Kokomo Indiana University Kokomo (IU Kokomo or IUK) is a public university in Kokomo, Indiana. It is a regional campus of Indiana University serving north central Indiana. History In 1932, John and George Beauchamp opened the Kokomo Junior College ...

, and is now the home of the Howard County Museum and Howard County Historical Society. He came to Kokomo, Howard County, Indiana in 1901 and first worked for the Ford and Donnelly Foundry, (which had made the first aluminum casting in 1895). Along with Charles T. Byrne, he founded Byrne, Kingston & Company, which manufactured carburetors, automotive accessories, appliances and other instruments.¹ The Company later became known as Kingston Products, and also manufactured such things as Roller Skates, Radios and toys sold under the Kokomo Toys brand. The toys became particularly popular in the 1920s and 1930s with fire engines, trucks and various toy cars. Kingston was sold in 1967 to the Scott & Fetzer Company, now

The Scott Fetzer Company The Scott Fetzer Company, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, is an American diversified manufacturer and marketer of products for the home, family, and industry comprising 33 brands, headquartered in Westlake, Ohio. The company was founded by G ...

, which itself is now a part of

Berkshire Hathaway Berkshire Hathaway Inc. () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Its main business and source of capital is insurance, from ...

. Kokomo Electric Company was established to manufacture

spark coil An ignition coil (also called a spark coil) is an induction coil in an automobile's ignition system that transforms the battery's voltage to the thousands of volts needed to create an electric spark in the spark plugs to ignite the fuel. So ...

s and

spark plug A spark plug (sometimes, in British English, a sparking plug, and, colloquially, a plug) is a device for delivering electric current from an ignition system to the combustion chamber of a spark-ignition engine to ignite the compressed fuel/air ...

s for automobiles, and other ignition and electrical related goods. Kingston, Byrne, James F. Ryan and others were shareholders in this company.² The Kokomo Brass Company, a plumber-fitting company, also listed Mr. Kingston as an instrumental member.³

External links

Howard County MuseumKingston ProductsBerkshire Hathaway

Sources

¹,²,³ - "History Of Howard County Indiana, Vol. II" by Jackson Morrow. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kingston, George American inventors 20th-century American engineers 1863 births 1946 deaths Carburettors