Grimes & Madigan Page 374-375 - Grimes & Madigan. Under this corporate title is conducted in Grand Rapids one of the prosperous and well ordered enterprises of the city, in the handling of the varied lines of petroleum products, the company having been organized in April, 1922, with Friend S. Grimes as president and Frank A. Madigan as vice-president. These two progressive principals have had thorough experience in the oil business and in the same have developed a substantial and representative enterprise, in Grand Rapids. Mr. Grimes was born on a farm in Noble county, Ohio, and the public schools of the Old Buckeye state afforded him his youthful education, which was supplemented by his attending a business college at Marietta, that state. He continued his association with the work and management of the home farm until he was twenty years of age, and thereafter he gave three years to successful service as a teacher in the rural schools of his native state. He then attended the business college at Marietta, and after this discipline he took a position in the offices of the National Refining Company, at Marietta, Ohio, his twelve years of association with this company having gained to him broad and valuable experience in the oil business. He not only did office work, but also drove an oil truck, and finally became a salesman, in which last mentioned service he continued until 1915, when the company opened its first Michigan branch, in the city of Kalamazoo, and Mr. Grimes was made its manager. There he remained three years, and it was within this period that he formed the acquaintance of his present business colleague, Mr. Madigan, whom he employed as a salesman. In 1918 Mr. Grimes was assigned management of the Sinclair Oil Company’s branch at Buffalo, New York, and six months later he was made manager of the branch at Detroit, Michigan, where he remained until 1920, when he came to Grand Rapids, as operating manager for the Co-operative Oil Company. Within that year he became manager of the Bay City branch of the Northern Oil Company HH, but he soon resigned that position and returned to Grand Rapids, where, in April 1922, he became associated with Mr. Madigan in the organizing of the corporation of Grimes & Madigan, as indicated in the early part of this review. Operations were instituted on a modest scale with storage capacity of 22,000 gallons, but the vital energy and industry of the principals in the new enterprise, as coupled with efficiency of service, caused a rapid expansion of the business. The concern now has a large and modern plant at 1805 Monroe avenue, where are maintained eight storage tanks of 20,000 gallons capacity each, and one tank with a capacity of 100,000 gallons. From the headquarters the company sends forth its fleet of seven tank motor trucks in supplying the fourteen service stations in Grand Rapids, and the business is one of most substantial and prosperous order. The company prides itself on retaining a corps of employes who have been with the concern from the time of its organization. Mr. Grimes married Miss Flossie Fox, daughter of John Fox, of Coolville, Ohio, and they have two children.

Transcriber:  Nancy Myers
Created: 6 July 2003