Chester Thordarson
| Chester H. Thordarson | |
|---|---|
| Born |
May 12, 1867 Iceland |
| Died | 6 January 1945 (aged 77) Chicago, Illinois |
| Resting place | Rock Island, Wisconsin |
| Education | dropped out of 7th grade at age 20 |
| Engineering career | |
| Discipline | Electrical engineering |
| Projects |
Alternating current, high-voltage, high-frequency power experiments, transformer design, transformer manufacturing |
| Significant design | Power grid, electrical transformer |
Chester Hjortur Thordarson (May 12, 1867 – January 6, 1945) — born Hjörtur Þórðarson — was an Icelandic-American inventor and manufacturer of electrical apparatus who eventually held nearly a hundred technology patents related to transformers, inductors, high voltage coils, and more.
Thordarson immigrated to the United States from Iceland in 1873 with his parents Gudrun Grimsdotter and Thordur Arnason. In 1887, Thordarson took a job in Chicago, Illinois working for Chicago Edison Co. In 1895, he founded the Thordarson Electric Manufacturing Company, a manufacturing company in Chicago that produced industrial and commercial transformers. Thordarson's company is now called Thordarson Meissner, Inc. and has locations in Mount Carmel, Illinois, and Henderson, Nevada.
He was instrumental in the development of the modern energy transmission grid with his work in transformers. He achieved his first distinction at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, where for the Purdue University exhibit he designed and built the first million-volt transformer. For his efforts he won the fair's gold medal.
In 1910, Thordarson began purchasing property on Rock Island, an island off the tip Wisconsin's Door Peninsula. Thordarson established a private vacation retreat on Rock Island. He was intensely interested in preserving the island’s natural beauty. In 1965 the state of Wisconsin purchased Rock Island from his heirs. Thordarson's former estate has been designated Rock Island State Park. His buildings were added to the National Register of Historic Places as the Thordarson Estate Historic District during 1985.
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