Plymouth and Caledonia, WI

The Kohler Co. is located, not coincidentally, in the small town of Kohler Wisconsin.  As seems to have happened quite frequently in years past, a town was created to serve the needs of a large corporation.  The Kohler Company is very involved with town life, and the company is still family owned 100  years later.

      We spent 5 hours at the Kohler Co., touring their facilities, which include the largest foundry in Wisconsin. They do not allow pictures to be taken, so we  of course have no pictures to show.  We toured about 4 different buildings and saw many products being built, including ceramic sinks, tubs, metal fixtures and cast iron products.  We learned the difference between a Pattern and a casting- a pattern is the mold that makes the mold, essentially.  The castings for toilets and ceramic sinks are made from sand, and are broken apart once the product is made.  Then they are recycled into another casting, which means that each casting is only used once before it is recycled.  Very labor intensive!  We also saw enamel painting being done.  Their 3 most popular enamel colors are sprayed on by robot, but the specialty colors are actually sprayed on by hand, and require 3 coats, with a firing in between each.  No wonder these fixtures cost so much!!

  They have a huge machine they call Herman and Herman builds their most popular bathtub.  This tub is never touched by human hands, which is great for the workers since it weighs in at 450 lbs.  From start to finish its a conveyor type system that casts it, fires it, and enamels it.

       After exploring the surrounding towns of Sheboygan and Sheboygan Falls on Lake Michigan, and Fond Du Lac and Oshkosh, which are on Lake Winnebago, we were ready to move on to our next location, Caledonia, Wisconsin.
Caledonia was a brief stopover to meet up with the parents of Jessica's boyfriend.  We didn't know when we decided to stop here that by the time we had dinner with them, they would be Jessica's future in-laws! It did make it very nice that the four of us were together when David asked Jessica to marry him, so when I got the call from her, we all got the news at the same time!

   While in the area we checked out the Jelly Belly "factory".  Its actually just a warehouse, but they have a short tour of the facilities, which drops you off at their retail store, of course.  We did buy a lot of Jelly Belly jelly beans, and some candy corn.  I will say that they do let you sample anything you want, and the candy corn is some of the best (but most expensive) I have ever had.