CHAPTER 12: SPIRULE INC.

On the evening of Tuesday, April 8, 1952, were Walter Evans to have opened his home-delivered copy of the local newspaper, The Whittier News, he would have bypassed the headlines announcing President Truman’s nationally broadcast speech scheduled for later that evening. He would have skipped past its sports pages articles on the imminent major league baseball season. He would have thumbed directly to the newspapers inside pages to look for an announcement (A-22) that he himself had arranged to be published two weeks before. The undersigned does hereby certify that I am conducting a mail sales business at 1706 Maple St., City of Whittier, County of Los Angeles, State of California, under the fictitious firm name of The Spirule Company. Ironically, two years to the day had passed since Evans had written to three individuals, all of whom had written him to ask for a Spirule (A-9). All three had attended Evans’s presentation at a New York AIEE meeting in January 1950 at which he had demonstrated the utility of the plastic device he called a “Spirule”. 

In his letters, however, Evans explained that a seemingly intractable cost problem had prevented all but a few handcrafted spirules from being made (A-10).$30 each for a machine shop model, 50 cents each for a stamped model in a lot of 500. The spirule isn’t worth $30 and the demand is far short of 500! Now, two years after writing those words, Evans had in fact disposed of all but one spirule from an initial production run of 513. It would not be long before that last once was requested -- three days to be exact - by an unknown student/engineer named Sheldon Saks.

At the present time I am enrolled in a servomechanisms course being given by UCLA at NAMTC, Pt. Magu where I am employed. The Spirule will be of great help to me in class as well as the work in which I am involved. However, the sources of supply at UCLA have been exhausted and apparently no more will be available. I would appreciate if you could inform me as to where I could purchase one. Sincerely, Sheldon Saks.

Mr. Saks was correct -- the sources of supply were nearly exhausted -- but only temporarily. Evans fulfilled Mr. Saks request by sending to him the last remaining Spirule from its initial production run. Obviously, as his asserting the demand is “far short of 500” testify, Evans now found himself in circumstances he had once thought inconceivable. What had happened to transform April 1950 expectations into April 1952 reality? 

College Bookstore Orders: January 1952 -- March 1952

Orders continued to flow in, some sent directly to Evans at his Whittier home, some to him at his North American Downey address, some to the Universal Equipment Company in Culver City. The most significant developments in the first quarter of 1952 were the enthusiasm of two engineering professors from the University of California -- Joseph Beggs of UCLA and Otto Smith at UC Berkeley (A-21). 

The UC schools’ embrace of root locus and the spirule into their department’s feedback control classes and laid the foundation for spirule sales to university bookstores. Joe Beggs and Otto Smith were in a vanguard of professors at UCLA, Berkeley, Stanford, and Caltech who chose to introduce the new root locus methods into their classes, many of whom had selected Campbell and Brown’s 1948 Servomechanism book as their text. (Many other schools followed suit, but only after root locus had made its way into other textbooks.) 

The March 8 order for 12 spirules from Berkeley ‘s associated student store notes “We have been asked by Prof. Otto Smith of Electrical Engineering to carry these in our department. We do not know the rule but he states that there will be a continued demand for them. This rule was invented by W. R. Evans”. (Note: Berkeley’s bookstore seemed confused about how to order them. Evans received their first order via the “Robison Corporation” at Universal Equipment’s Culver City address and their second order was addressed to the “W. E. Evans Company” at Evans’ home address. 

In March, an order of 55 spirules for resale by UCLA bookstore and 30 for resale by the University of California at Berkeley bookstore and 20 from Caltech’s Charles Wilts for his servo-mechanism class. The supply from the initial batch of 500 had begun to run dry. The Universal Equipment Company partnership had dissolved and the new owner wanted to raise the price of the Spirule. Having successfully completed the assembly, correspondence, billing, and shipping himself, Evans decided he would take over the entire enterprise. 

On March 27 he filled out Certificate of Business forms and submitted them for publication in the local newspaper, the Whittier News. There, on April 8, 15, 22, and 29 was published the following announcement (A-22): “The undersigned does hereby declare that I am conducting a mail sales business at 1706 Maple Street under the fictitious name of The Spirule Company.” 

The Spirule Company: April 1952

And so it came to be that on April 11, 1952, when Shedon Saks wrote to Evans for his order of a Spirule, thereby exhausting the batch of 500 which Evans had once predicted was a number that would exceed all demand, that the Spirule Company had been born over three years since North American published AL-787 in November, 1948. It came from an individual who was a practicing engineer, but taking a servomechanism course. UCLA courses in particular created a demand for Spirules, and so Saks’s UCLA connection was not surprising. Its arrival at 1706 Maple Street as letter requesting directly from Evans just one spirule, to which an individual shipment and letter accompanied the response, and subsequently a letter in return, was typical as well. Thousands of similar requests arrived at Evans home over the subsequent years. 

Evans immediately placed an order to Jesse Hogan of Cellulose Products for a second batch of 500 spirules in April 1952 (A-23). He informed her in an April 5th letter to replace the label Universal Equipment Company with The Spirule Company, and informed her that “he would be away next week.” It was spring break for his sons and he would be traveling with his family on a spring vacation holiday. He and Arline would celebrate their 10th Wedding Anniversary on the trip in addition to celebrating the founding of a company that they would operate together for another thirty years.

Others were celebrating that day besides the future president of the Spirule Company. Other future United States presidents were celebrating. Dwight Eisenhower asked to be relieved of his duties as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO on April 11 to make his run for the presidency. Also on April 11, 1952, a young congressman from Boston announced he would run for the US Senate seat from Massachusetts -- John Kennedy. Walter and Arline Evans celebrated that evening the tenth anniversary of their wedding. Arline had just entered her third trimester of a pregnancy that would produce in June the third child of their marriage, Nancy Arline Evans.