Wagner Waffle Iron

This device at Smith’s Tavern is a cast iron round waffle iron with a high base and wooden handles, made by Wagner Manufacturing Co., Sydney, Shelby County, Ohio patented “July 26, 1892”.  The bases of the waffle iron were all numbered; it is unknown what the base number is of the device at Smith’s Tavern. To use the waffle iron, the base would be placed on a stove’s eye-opening – the high bases were usually used on gas stoves with the cook rotating the top waffle iron to evenly cook the waffles.

 

Wagner was founded in 1891 by Milton M. and Bernard P. Wagner.  However, two more Wagner brothers, Louis, and William Wagner joined the company in the following years. Another key player in the foundation of the company was R.O Bingham. Bingham previously worked at Marion Stove works and the Sidney Manufacturing Co.  In 1952, Wagner was sold to the Randall Company. Unbelievably, the Randall Company was a car parts manufacturer.

 

In 1959, the company was sold again. This time to a company called Textron, Textron had also purchased Griswold Manufacturing Co. earlier.  It was at this time that major production of Wagner cast ironware stopped. In 2014, American Culinary bought both the Wagner and Griswold trademarks - so fingers crossed cast-iron fans, one day they may decide to manufacture Wagner cast iron again.

 

Reference:  https://www.booniehicks.com/wagner-cast-iron/

Catalog Items:

Item T103

Location:	Front of Panels 5-6
Weight:	3950 g