Milo G. Kellogg was born into a prominent, wealthy New England family. He attended
prep school, and received two degrees in engineering from the
University of Rochester. He married a member of one of Chicago's most prestigious families, and relocated to Illinois. In the 1880s, Kellogg was a manager at
Western Electric as superintendent of its Chicago manufacturing and research plant, and also at the
Southern Telephone and Telegraph Company. In 1897, with expiring, Kellogg established a manufacturing firm, the Kellogg Switchboard & Supply Company. Kellogg himself held more than 150 patents, and had invented the divided multiple
telephone switchboard, which became the flagship product of the new company. This switchboard offered greater flexibility and efficiency than earlier designs in handling a large telephone subscriber base at urban exchanges. Kellogg primarily supplied local
independent telephone companies.
1903 strike In 1903, the Kellogg Switchboard and Supply Company was the target of a bitter
strike by the Brass Molder's Union Local 83 and the
International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Kellogg was supported by the
Bell Telephone Trust (which at the time owned most of Kellogg Switchboard's stock), the
Illinois Manufacturers' Association, and the
Employers' Association of Chicago. Kellogg Switchboard sued to stop the Teamsters from engaging in their
sympathy strike, and won an injunction forcing the drivers back to work. The Kellogg company refused to negotiate, fired nearly 90% of its workforce, and broke the strike.
Post-WWII The
ITT Corporation purchased a controlling interest in the Kellogg Switchboard and Supply Company in 1952, rebranding the new division's equipment as ITT Kellogg for a decade. In 1958, ITT Kellogg was a contractor to the
U.S. Air Force, for which Kellogg build a ground communication system for the ballistic missile base at
Cooke Air Force Base. Also in 1958, Kellogg Corporation established a location in Raleigh, North Carolina for the production of telecommunications transmission equipment. The location at 2912 Wake Forest Road was in manufacturing operations until 1990 as a recent merged
Alcatel location. This 24-acre site later became a research and development facility between 1991 and 2003. In 1987, ITT sold its telecommunications product lines, including ITT Kellogg, to French company
Alsthom, creating Alcatel N.V. of the Netherlands. ITT had a 37% stake in the new company, which it sold in 1992 to complete its exit from the telecommunications equipment business. Meanwhile, the former Kellogg
customer-premises equipment business unit based at
Corinth, Mississippi was given a new name – Cortelco – and in July 1990 was sold to a former ITT executive,
David S. Lee. In December 2008, eOn Communications (where Lee was chairman and CEO) announced an agreement to acquire Cortelco Systems Holding Corporation. ==References==