ON PROPERTY
Our Town
HOW THERE’ S MORE TO KOHLER, WISC., THAN PLUMBING PRODUCTS.
By DAVID EISEN
The American Club in Kohler, Wisc., once housed immigrant employees of Kohler, but was recast as a hotel in 1981.
T
here’ s a strong chance that your home contains a Kohler-made product. Maybe a toilet, a faucet, a sink or a bathtub— maybe all. Kohler is an American success story with a rich and riveting history; an immigrant story about a man who plumbed the depths of manufacturing only to build a plumbing empire. It eventually would become even more. Midway through the 19th century, a nineyear-old John Michael Kohler emigrated with his family from Austria to the American Midwest. He toiled in his teenage years as an itinerant salesman, but it was a trip to Sheboygan, Wisc., that altered the trajectory of his life. There, 55 miles north of Milwaukee, in a town that would later gain the moniker of“ Bratwurst Capital of the World,” Kohler called on a local industrialist named Jacob Vollrath, fell in love with and married the businessman’ s daughter, and settled down.
Kohler worked at the steel-and-iron factory his father-in-law owned and took over the business around the Panic of 1873, the post-Civil War financial crisis prompted by distress in the railroad industry. The company began dabbling in iron and enamelware products and, in 1883, as the story goes, Kohler put ornamental feet on a cast-iron water trough and sold it as a bathtub. The move proved to be a seminal moment: Four years later, more than twothirds of the company’ s business was in plumbing products and enamelware.
Around the turn of the century, Kohler bought 21 acres of farmland just west of Sheboygan and a new factory was built. Regrettably, Kohler would never see the sheer magnitude of the business he conceived. In 1900, at the age of 56, he passed away, likely of heart failure. Walter, his son, took over the reins of what would be designated the Kohler Company and the property surrounding the plant became a model company town known as the Village of Kohler. Talk about a homefield advantage.
BEYOND PIPES Kohler is a global name in plumbing products.( Kohler is a private company, but Forbes estimated its 2025 revenue at approximately $ 7 billion.) What many don’ t know is that it’ s also a travel and hospitality company. And that’ s thanks to a thirdgeneration Kohler, Herb Kohler, a grandson of founder John Michael, who became CEO of Kohler Co. in 1972.
Often referred to as HVK, or Mr. Kohler by those more formal, Kohler was known as an innovator who above all championed the excellence of Kohler products. He expanded the company’ s kitchen and bath offerings far beyond functional plumbing products to
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