The Early Years
Battle Creek Equipment Co. grew out of the premier American spa of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Battle Creek Sanitarium was founded in 1866. The “San” as it was known became world-renowned under the leadership of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and was a popular spot with the rich and famous, including President Taft, Eleanor Roosevelt, JC Penney, SS Kresge (Kmart founder), WC Post, Mary Todd Lincoln, Henry Ford, and Amelia Earhart among many others. Battle Creek, the city was known as “Health City” because of the San. Many guests stayed for a month or longer to “cleanse” themselves. The San was focused on providing a unique spa focused on healthy living and habits. “Radical” ideas for the times, Dr. Kellogg and his staff promoted ideas like “Exercise is good,” “Good hygiene matters to your health,” “Nutrition is important” and “Fresh air and sunshine are healthy.” Much was also made of what today we call Physical Therapy, Massage Therapy and hydrotherapy. After a devastating fire destroyed much of the San in 1902, close to $1,000,000 was borrowed to rebuild it. More information can be found online by searching for “Battle Creek Sanitarium” or in the book The Kelloggs, The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek.
In the 1920’s a young engineer worked at the San developing new exercise and health equipment. His name was Wendell Doty. During the ’20’s the San was busier than ever serving 400+ guests. The stock market crash of 1929 brought that to an end and with the debt that was owed for the rebuilding and subsequent expansions of the San. By the early 1930’s the San was put in receivership and eventually the building was sold to the army to use as a hospital in 1942. Wendell Doty was an entrepreneur and knew a good thing when he saw it. So he went to the trustee managing the bankruptcy and told him that a lot of the equipment could be sold to past guests. Within about a year, he sold enough that he was running out of some of the bestsellers and he and a partner started Battle Creek Equipment Co. to sell the exercise equipment. Eventually, they took on manufacturing as well. About this same time, Dr Kellogg’s brother who had worked at the San in its heyday, was building a cereal company in Battle Creek! Both Kellogg’s Company and Battle Creek Equipment Co. continue to offer products that grew out of those early days at the San.
Wendell Doty
For some fun images, search online for: Battle Creek Sanitarium images, and/or Battle Creek Sanitarium Exercise images, and/or Battle Creek Sanitarium exercise equipment images.
The Middle Years
Like most companies, Battle Creek Equipment Co struggled during the 1930’s. The company would set up in a garage near the San building which would soon become the Percy Jones Army Hospital. Some products that are still popular today were first developed during this time including our Thermophore® Moist Heating Pad and our Battle Creek BedWarmer™. When the war started, BCE shifted most of its manufacturing over to making fire extinguisher parts in support of the war effort. Later, as wounded soldiers returned to Percy Jones Hospital for therapy, the army doctors found the Thermophore® pads perfect for treating pain in their patients. Percy Jones Hospital became the first army hospital to treat wounded soldiers as they came back from the war. Treating pain was a critical aspect of their treatment as they went through grueling physical and occupational therapy treatments to restore their physical abilities. Without today’s modern NSAIDs (drugs) for managing pain, moist heat therapy (via the Thermophore® pads) and cold therapy were found to be extremely important in successfully treating our veterans.
At least three prominent US Senators were patients there, Senators Dole, Hart and Inouye all were treated there. The building is now a federal building and is named for the three senators who were patients there. Senator Dole is credited with nicknaming the hospital the “velvet foxhole” because it looked fancy, but still needed to be ready for fierce fighting (of pain, not the war). Senators Dole and Inouye met at the hospital and became friends as they went through their painful treatments. Senator Dole lost use of an arm and Senator Inouye had one arm amputated due to their injuries.
After the war, Battle Creek Equipment Co. returned to a new normal. The company jumped back into innovation focusing on exercise equipment and pain management products. Back in the 1930’s the company was the first US company to offer treadmills for exercise (people not animals). Exercise bikes, treadmills, Exercise machines, steam cabinets, massage tables, sun lamps and belt vibrating (Health Builder brand) machines (see YouTube – Grace Kelly with Exercise Belt) were all the rage in the 1950’s and 1960’s and the company made them all. In 1959, the company opened up a state of the art factory near downtown Battle Creek, at 307 W. Jackson Street. This would be the heart of the company for the next 50+ years; becoming a museum of Battle Creek’s history after the company relocated in late 2013.
In the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, US manufacturers of exercise equipment faced serious competition from overseas manufacturers. Most went out of business. Others changed the focus of their companies. Battle Creek Equipment Co. moved away from the exercise portion of their business and focused on its pain management products, with the Thermophore® pad leading the way. Also during this time Wendell started handing off management of the company to his son, John Doty. John became president in the mid-1970’s. Wendell continued to come to the office daily until his final months, passing away at age 96. Meanwhile, John expanded the company by opening a new manufacturing plant in Fremont, Indiana, where the company continues to manufacture many of the Thermophore® items today.
John Doty
Battle Creek in the 21st Century
Over the last two decades, Battle Creek Equipment Co. has continued to focus on pain management and dramatically expanded its product lines to meet the increasing need for pain relief. Known by our trademark as The Original Drug-Free Pain Relief Company…Hot & Cold Therapy Products since 1931!, we continue to focus on helping people around the world manage/relieve their pain with minimal use of drugs. Today, the company is owned and run by Wendell’s grandson, David Underhill and his wife Joy. Battle Creek Equipment is proud that we have employees that have been with the company for over 40 years and worked side-by-side with Wendell when they started.
Competition has been fierce in pain management products. The vast majority of pain management products come from overseas factories. Battle Creek Equipment continued to compete with only US-built products until the last five years. Today we offer both products that we source to be competitive on price and products that we continue to make in our Fremont, Indiana factory. The change has been driven by the rapid growth of the internet-direct sales. The internet has made it so that companies can start selling “over night”. Source a product line from a foreign factory, work to avoid FDA compliance and effectively cut out “middle men” like local home medical equipment stores and a company can grow very profitable, very quickly. Many of these companies only sell online, limiting how many people they have to hire. If they run afoul of the FDA or lawsuits or Amazon/other dot.com sellers, they fold up and start anew under another “no name brand” six months later. The combination of easy access to US consumers (via the internet) and cheap manufacturing in China has been great for the American consumer, leading to lower prices. But often it is a “buyer beware” situation where if you hadn’t heard of the brand 5 years ago, chances are they may not be around when you need support for your product 5 years from now. So caveat emptor!!!
At Battle Creek Equipment Co., we believe that competition makes you stronger. But you also have to be willing to make hard decisions if you want to compete. That is in our DNA as an American manufacturer for 90 years. So we have made some of the difficult decisions like having to move some of our production to our overseas factories. We recognize that this will be unpopular with many of our consumers, which is why we continue to make many products in our Fremont factory. Some of our customers only want US-made products and so we have these in our most popular lines. Some want the quality of Battle Creek Equipment, backed up by our 90 history of innovation, but don’t care where it is made as long as it is affordable. And so we have products for them too.
The Thermophore® line continues to provide unique and unequaled deeply penetrating moist heat therapy and can be found in use daily in many physical therapist, occupational therapist, massage therapist and chiropractor offices. Now available under multiple sub-brands including Classic, MaxHEAT, Liberty and Freedom. The Liberty and Freedom lines continue to be made in our Fremont facility, with the Freedom line offered exclusively to the Veteran’s Administration and other federal agencies supporting our troops. These are trademarked as The Last American Heating Pad™, recognizing that Battle Creek Equipment continues to make many of our heating pads here in the USA! We believe that we are the last company manufacturing heating pads here in the US. All our competition comes from Asian-made heating pads. So if you want American, you want Battle Creek!
Most of our non-Thermophore® brands are manufactured outside the US. But they offer outstanding pain management solutions and we continue to design all of our products in our Innovation Center in Portage, MI. These products include Moist Heat Therapy items, Heat Therapy items and Cold Therapy items today, many of which can be worn while going through your daily lives. We have some new items coming out almost every year as we develop new and innovative solutions to help our customers manage and relieve their pain.
