History of Marvel Refrigeration:
130 Years of Crafted Excellence
When you choose Marvel Premium Refrigeration, you’re choosing 130 years of quality and leading innovation in the luxury refrigeration business. You’re choosing carefully designed products and most importantly, you’re choosing the best undercounter refrigeration technology available on the market.
As the longest-standing refrigeration company in North America, we are proud to have pioneered numerous advancements that helped shape refrigeration technology into what it is today.
Our decorated past began in 1892 in Greenville, Michigan, a beautiful, tightly-knit community where our manufacturing facility is still based today. Here, we created the first foamed-in-place refrigerator, and the first refrigeration of its kind with sleek stainless steel interiors and glass doors. We were also first to adopt a midnight black interior for wine cellars and beverage centers, now a very popular and practical aesthetic.
Our legacy of quality craftsmanship continues to stand strong throughout the centuries, driving the performance the industry has come to expect from Marvel. The extensive Marvel product offering is world class, a dynamic selection of sophisticated, high-performance wine cellars, beverage centers, indoor and outdoor refrigerators, ice machines and beer dispensers.
1892
Ranney Refrigerator is founded in Greenville, Michigan and is soon known for being one of the best-fitted manufacturing plants in the country. It launches with finely made ice boxes to preserve perishables in homes, delivered by horse and buggy.
1893
Ranney files a patent for its exclusive ice rack.
1895
Ranney files a patent for its stop for door lids, the only two-position lid holder.
1899
Ranney grows to be one of the largest manufacturing plants of its kind in Michigan, giving employment to a staff of 300 and producing 40,000 refrigerators. It becomes a growing institution and increases its plant size by 50% for 1900.
1903
The Detroit Free Press publishes, “As to quality and service the Ranney refrigerator has no rival.”
1915
Ranney’s Greenville factory is destroyed in a fire and the company resiliently works to rebuild and resume operations for its customers and its employees.
1917
Ranney files a patent for its water cooler design.
1938
Ranney transitions to mechanical refrigeration, and Greenville maintains prominence in the refrigeration industry throughout the 20th Century as the “Refrigerator Capital of the World”.
1941
Ranney signs a contract with The War Department to manufacture air tank shields for World War II.
1945
Ranney is awarded another quota by the War Production Board.
1950
The Pentagon awards Ranney with a $1.145 million contract to furnish the army with refrigerators for military installations in this country and abroad.
1954
Ranney busily works on orders for the defense department. (News article in Lansing State Journal, Lansing, Michigan).
1965
Ranney develops the first foamed-in-place refrigerator to improve operating efficiency and energy conservation.
1970
Fedders Corporation purchases Ranney Refrigerator and begins manufacturing refrigeration under the Norge label.
1978
Gordon Stauffer, then president of Fedders Refrigeration, purchases the company and renames it Northland Refrigeration, and begins staking its position in the marketplace with robust commercial-style refrigeration for home use.
1970s
Northland begins manufacturing premium commercial-grade refrigeration for home use, and quickly becomes known for its high storage capacity.
1989
Northland purchases Marvel Industries, a manufacturer of refrigerators for biomedical and laboratory applications, hotels, motels, offices and residential homes.
1990
Marvel supplies refrigerators for hospitals during Operation Desert Storm.
1991
Northland introduces the industry’s first stainless steel interior and glass door refrigerators for residential use.
1992
Marvel introduces its first premium undercounter wine storage and beverage center.
2001
Marvel releases the industry-first black interior for wine cellars and beverage center.
2002
Northland unveils 72-inch wide refrigerator/freezer combination, by far the largest capacity system in the world for home use.
2003
Aga Foodservice Group acquires Northland Kitchen Appliance. Northland joins the company’s prestigious group of consumer high-end range cooking and refrigeration equipment companies that include Aga Ranges, Aga Rayburn, Marvel, Domain, Fired Earth, Grange, La Cornue, Heartland and Rangemaster.
2008
Governor Jennifer M. Granholm announces Northland-Marvel will invest $10.2 million in a new 175,000 square-foot manufacturing and innovation center in Greenville. The expansion is expected to create 337 new Michigan jobs, including 157 directly by the company.
2012
Marvel introduces the Marvel Professional line in response to the growing trend toward pro-style kitchens.
2015
Marvel wins multiple design awards for its beer dispenser, beverage center and gallery wine cellar.
2016
The Middleby Corporation acquires Marvel.
2022
Middleby and Marvel Refrigeration Introduce BrightShield Antimicrobial Lighting to a Collection of Refrigerators and Ice Machines.
Now
Marvel's ever expanding and evolving line of undercounter products continue to be a leader in the industry.
FROM THE TIME CAPSULE
Ranney handcrafted three distinct refrigeration lines with over one hundred styles: the “Lapland” of solid oak, the “Monitor” of solid ash, and the “Mascot” of other hard woods.
Constructed with scientific principles of preservation and beautifully finished natural wood, Ranney earns a reputation for being the best refrigerators the world over, and works of art.
FROM THE TIME CAPSULE
Ranney also operated its own saw mills and stocked over four million feet of lumber throughout the year. It also ran a train of 40 cars, three railroad lines and also had direct connection with the lake ports.
THIS YEAR IN HISTORY
Grover Cleveland is inaugurated a second time and is the only president to serve two nonconsecutive terms.
THIS YEAR IN HISTORY
Gold is discovered in the Yukon’s Klondike.
THIS YEAR IN HISTORY
This year also marks the First World Series for baseball. And, the Wright brothers make the first controlled, sustained flight in heavier-than-air aircraft.
THIS YEAR IN HISTORY
1906 newspaper advertisement from the Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan)
1914 – 1918: WORLD WAR I
THIS YEAR IN HISTORY
1906 newspaper advertisement from the Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan)
1920 – 1933: PROHIBITION
FROM THE TIME CAPSULE
1925 Ranney advertisements from the Lansing State Journal (Lansing, Michigan)
1929 – 1939: GREAT DEPRESSION
THIS YEAR IN HISTORY
The Star-Spangled Banner is adopted as the national anthem.
1939 – 1945: WORLD WAR II
THIS YEAR IN HISTORY
The first full-color television is demonstrated.
1950 – 1953: KOREA WAR
1950 – 1975: VIETNAM WAR
THIS YEAR IN HISTORY
Ranney replaces a family’s refrigerator after a fire (News article in the Battle Creek Enquirer).
FROM THE TIME CAPSULE
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech before a crowd of 200,000 during the civil rights march on Washington, DC.
FROM THE TIME CAPSULE
Ranney celebrates three generations of family operation.
FROM THE TIME CAPSULE
Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, Jr., become the first men to land on the Moon.
FROM THE TIME CAPSULE
The first personal computer for home use enters the market.
FROM THE TIME CAPSULE
Saturday Night Live airs this skit of a Norge refrigerator repairman (Dan Aykroyd) where he shows more than his talents to nerdy teenagers played by Gilda Radner and Bill Murray.
FROM THE TIME CAPSULE
Northland product spec sheets from the 1970s.
1990 – 1991: GULF WAR
FROM THE TIME CAPSULE
The Marvel Outdoor Series makes the news.
2001 – Present: WAR IN AFGHANISTAN
FROM THE TIME CAPSULE
A 72″ Marvel Professional Refrigerator Freezer appeared on Season 4 of the Vanilla Ice Project, as a special order from Vanilla Ice himself.
FROM THE TIME CAPSULE
Marvel supplies refrigerators for military mess halls overseas.
2003 – 2011: IRAQ WAR
FROM THE TIME CAPSULE
News feature from Orlando Sentinel (Orlando, Florida)
