The Michler Company

The Michler Company was founded in 1884 by 22-year-old Herman Michler. He arrived in this country with his parents at age ten, but by age 14 decided he had had enough schooling, and went to work. His first job was for C. J. L. Meyer Sash, Door and Blind Factory, where he cut slabs of wood into shingles. One day his head got too close to the saw, so his father insisted on finding another job for him. He then served as an apprentice to Henry Bloedel, where he worked for three years, learning the blacksmith trade.

Herman’s desire was always to have a business of his own, and at the age of 22, he opened his own blacksmith shop at 31 E. Third St. The one part of blacksmithing that Herman didn’t care for, was shoeing horses, so over the course of the year, he began to confine his business to repairing machinery, wagons and sleighs.

The Michler Company continued to thrive and grow, because of Herman’s focus on a quality product. The company furnished the steel work for the erection of many of the larger buildings in Fond du Lac 1 . He was interested in obtaining good employees, so he helped to organize the Vocational School in the city. He directed the construction of the old wooden sidewalks leading to Lakeside Park in the early days, and later was instrumental in obtaining a dredge to work there for the formation of the lagoons.

Herman Michler continued to improve his wagons and sleighs, and on February 14, 1901 his was the very first company to enter into a contract with the newly formed Firestone Tire and Rubber company. Now Michler wagons had rubber tires.

The company became so well known that it secured several contracts to make sleighs for use in Alaska. These were huge vehicles, some over nine feet wide by fifty-five feet long. Many models were all steel excepting for ten foot Wisconsin White Oak runners covered by plates of steel. Many of these sleighs weighed almost 12,000 pounds and had a capacity of hauling more merchandise than the ordinary box car. The company once took an order for 100 of these huge sleighs, to be used in the Canol Project in Alaska and Canada.

One of their more ‘famous’ sleighs was designed by Herman’s son Walter Michler, who had joined the firm. Walter designed the “Go-Devil” sleigh, which had wide runners, which permitted it to be pulled over powdery snow surfaces without cutting in deeply. It also had a runner that curved on both ends, which allowed the sleigh to be pulled backward, another novel idea of the time. When Admiral Byrd was outfitting his expedition to the South Pole, he traveled all over the country looking for a sturdy sleigh, and ended up purchasing about 40 of the Michler sleighs.