"A friend told me I could use her KozaK on my dirty pickup truck. I could not believe the fantastic result. I ordered one the next day. And the price is great too!" -K.L. Tangen, Montana

History

KozaK DryWash cloths were first used in Batavia, N.Y. at the R.M. Walker Ford dealership. In those early Model T days, two men worked all night long with bucket and hose preparing demonstrator cars for the next days demonstration. KozaK cloths were born out of the necessity of cutting the “car wash” expense account. Developed by Russ Bridge and Edward Walker III of Genesee Chemical Co., it was discovered that the “Genesee” cloths saved 80% of the wet washing expense. It was also discovered that the cloths lasted for 50 to 100 cleanings. Word of mouth advertising spread the news of the cloths for over two years until the KozaK DryWash name was invented. KozaK cloths were originally distributed through 10,000 Rexall-Liggett Drug Stores, Firestone Stores, Ford Tractor and Implement dealers, and through many gas and oil companies. In addition, “KozaK Radiograms” were heard nightly over 25 stations reaching an audience of 50 million listeners. KozaK print ads ran continually in the Christian Science Monitor starting on December 16, 1927 and ending just recently.

The name KozaK itself was an invented name. Edward Walker III, the first President of the company, had read that George Eastman of Kodak attributed his success to a five letter word with two hard consonants at the end and one in the middle. Walker wrote Eastman in nearby Rochester, N.Y. and obtained permission to use the name. The original saying “Needs No Water – It’s a DryWash” is just as true today as it was back in 1926. One question often asked is “How can the word DryWash be trade marked? It seems to be descriptive. The word Dry is descriptive and implies lack of water. The word Wash is descriptive, implying the presence of water. Both words combined to one is not descriptive, being of two opposite thoughts. The patent offices in the U.S. and Canada issued the trademark for these reasons. It can’t be a DryWash unless it’s a KozaK!

The Birth of the Idea

“At 8 am on a day in the 1924’s I believe, the usual sales meeting was in progress when Rosa Yager, our bookkeeper at my father’s Ford agency, brought in the operating statement for the last month. And with it, the accounts receivable for each salesman that were past due. So the meeting skipped sales that day and went on to the expenses list. We had a wash rack at the warehouse at 247 West Main Street in Batavia where two men worked all night getting the 8 salesmen demonstrating cars in shape for the next day’s work demonstrating. Batavia, NY is in an area with only 15% of total sunshine year around. So washing cars during the night was a necessity to have them ready for sales demonstrating the next day – no matter what the weather.” “When we ran down the list of expenses, the one “washing demonstrating cars” was a big item. We stopped and pondered. One of the boys offhandly suggested, “Do you suppose there is a any way we could DRYWASH these cars at times when a real wet-wash may not be necessary?” So later we phoned Russ Bridge at Genesee Chemical Co. – a graduate chemist from Syracuse University in charge of making perchloric acid (HCLO4) and ZEDPLUMBIZED pails and dippers for the chemical industry (lead coated inside for handling acids and corrosive chemicals) – and told him we would like a way to DRYWASH new cars.

One day he brought us some cloths he said he thought would do the trick, They did. We cut out all night wet-washing – DRYWASHED the cars 80% of the time – with an occasional wet-wash during the daytime. It also cut this expense item 80%. And has been doing it ever since for many millions of car owners. First we just called them the DRYWASH cloths. And found we could clean from 50 to 100 or more cars with a single cloth BY USING IT RIGHT. The word got around and then other car salesmen – seeing our sparkling demonstrators – came in and bought them for their own use. I’ll never forget the day Earl Williams, our parts manager, came to me and asked, “How much will we charge Spike Beaker (a competing Chevrolet salesman) for a DRYWASH cloth?” My answer, “charge him a buck. It will save him fifty and that is a good investment of anyone’s money”. And that is how 25 cents of cloth materials and labor was priced at $1.00 in the middle 20’s.

Then the public started to come and buy them – by word-of-mouth advertising – until it became sort of a nuisance – which was finally solved by calling it a Genesee Auto DryWash cloth, and putting them in a package with directions for use, etc. In the meantime, my father, Raymond Marsh Walker, decided to sell his Ford car agency in the period when model T was changed over to Model A, and our whole organization broke up with me taking on Hudson-Essex – to which point on Masse Place in Batavia – the steadily growing Genesee cloth business gravitated. Ray Moore and Charley Slocum came along with me as salesmen, and Ray Greening and the nicest colored boy you ever saw from Culpepper, VA named Tommy Huffman, as our first two mechanics, and Gladys Gage our bookkeeper. Having been trained in Ford management, sales and service and with a new Essex 6 the smoothest thing on wheels then, we really went to town and made over $10,000 the first year. Tommy Huffman’s job was to meet every one of our new customers with his wonderful smile, any perform any service needed FREE OF CHARGE as often as needed for the whole first year of new Essex and Hudson ownership. Tommy’s time and personality sold more Hudson-Essex cars than all those ever sold before or since put-together.

Today, shops are run to make a profit, but in those days we ran this one to make friends and customers, and made more money each year until we quit selling cars and devoted ourselves to selling the DryWash cloths, which was in 1926 when KozaK Auto DryWash, Inc. received its corporation charter. One day Ray Phillips, secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, came in to buy a cloth, and mentioned that he could SELL these things, and he knew a real salesman who could help him too. He did not particularly like chamber of commerce work, and these two, Jack Murray and Ray – were absolutely the best salesmen it has ever been my pleasure to know. Ray and Jack decided that we had to get rid of the word “Genesee” as it was a geographical word which could not be trademarked. We would have to get going on a new trademark – learn how to RETAIL the item where it was unknown – make a display stand that could be packed in each Junior Assortment of 24, in a single carton. Jack also made up a Senior Assortment of 4 dozen which never sold, but made it easier to sell the Junior on the first order at $14.40, to the dealer from his jobber.We had about 100 dealers of sorts in Western New York who Charley Slocum went out and sold direct. And we ran a contest with them with $100 first prize for the winner of a new name for the Genesee DryWash cloth.

A young man in Hamburg, NY in a drug store won the first prize. And I can remember to this day, the astonishment and joy on his wife’s face, when I called at his house after work one night and handed him a big Ben Franklin ($100) bill like he never saw before. But his name could not be trademarked for one reason or another, which is not unusual as we were not patent and trademark lawyers. BUT, ever since I was in MIT and had more HCl04 on hand on my thesis work, which I sold by mail for a profit of several thousand dollars a year, I had just read an advertising magazine called Printer’s Ink. the Editor had just interviewed George Eastman and reported that in answer to his question, “To what do you attribute your success, Mr. Eastman?” Mr. Eastman replied, “To a 5 letter word with hard consonants at the end and one in the middle …. Kodak.” Gosh I said to myself. Why not put a “z” in place of the “d” and make it a capital “K” at the end, so as not to confuse it with “Kodak”, and use it for the trademark we were looking for. So I phoned Felix Procknow, our Patent Attorney in Buffalo, to make a telegraphic inquiry at the Patent Office.. And the next day he phoned me and we could use “KozaK”. I was pretty brash in those younger days and did not hesitate to write to Mr. Eastman and tell him the above story, and ask if there would be any objection to our using the word “KozaK”. I got the nicest letter you ever saw from Mr. Eastman himself, signed by him, wishing us the best of luck and saying there would be no objection whatever. And that is where the word “KozaK” came from.

A sequel to this developed in 1929, when our European distributor in Oslo, Norway mailed us a check without putting USA on the envelope. The letter went to Batavia, the capital of Java. Here it was delivered to Eastman Kodak’s office, and the manager having come from Rochester, NY knew it was for us. He mailed it in his dispatch pouch to Rochester, NY from which it was re-mailed to us in Batavia, NY USA. Today, if you try for a trademark, the first thing they do in Washington is to look in the Manhattan and Cook County, IL phone directories. If the name appears even once, the trademark is denied, as the name of a geographical unit or a family can not be trademarked. There are pages of “Kozaks” in both phone books now, and I think at least 100 KozaK customers have the name of Kozak – in addition to a race horse, a famous golfer, 2 Catholic priests in Saginaw or Bay City, MI, and even a farmer by the name of John Kozak, who lives in Byron, NY only six miles from Batavia. Many of our customers write to ask if we are Czechs, Polish, Russian, etc. They tell us that Kozak means “goat” in Bavarian, etc. But KozaK was an “invented” name in 1926, and presently is a registered trademark in the USA - Canada – W. Germany – Great Britain – France – Italy – Belgium – Japan, etc.

The word DryWash has had an interesting history in that the Patent Office first said it could not be registered – as it was a “descriptive” word. But our brilliant Felix Procknow told then “not so”. It is a meaningless word made up of two words combined into one word of opposite meanings, and therefore is not descriptive … “DRY” being the opposite of “WET” and “WASH” implying the presence of “WET”, so the word “DryWash” should be admitted to the register as a Trademark, which it was in 1926 or 1927. And it has been defended against all infringers – most unknowingly, such as FORD, and many others merchandising imitations of the Original KozaK Auto DryWash cloth. And while we are on trademarks, the camel on the KozaK package is also a registered trademark which came about in 2 ways. Most people today never heard of Allen’s Footease although it was issued to foot soldiers in WW1, and has been on the market since 1892 or before. One day, Jake Olmsted, a gentleman from the “old school” living in LeRoy, NY 10 miles east of Batavia, phoned me an invitation to lunch the next day to meet his brother Allen, a recluse who owned the Allen Footease Company. Allen lived in Buffalo, and let Jake run the company for him along with Foster somebody. I was pretty well advised then on spot radio advertising, and they figured this might be a possible venue for them to sell Allen’s Footease. Allen was a delightful person, and I asked him how it happened his picture was printed on the Allen’s Footease package. This broke out a big laugh when Allen said, “We always knew in the poprietary business you have to have a picture on a package so children sent to the store who can’t read can pick out what they were sent for by picture.

So, I went outside and there passing by was a horsedrawn coal wagon with a driver with a big bears (like TRADE and MARK) on Smith Bros cough drops. So we gave him a dollar, took his picture, got a release signed, and it is HIS picture not mine on the Allen’s Footease package”. Later on, Dave Tynion of an advertising agency in Syracuse, NY suggested a camel mounted on the back of a Ford 1/4 ton pick-up (in to which I put a new RCA portable, battery operated super heterodyne, connected with 2 loud speakers). When we wanted to make a demonstration we tuned in a local radio station and blasted the whole block. It quickly brought a crowd running as nobody that I ever heard of at that time had ever done this before. When I heard about this bit of successful showmanship Dave Tynion had thought up I asked Nina Mason, a famous local artist to draw me a dromedary camel with one hump big enough to put our KozaK Auto DryWash logotype inside his belly – with the slogan, “Needs no water – it’s a DryWash”.

In 1929 I think it was, we had 10 of these trucks covering the USA by our top notch salesmen who helped 9000 Ford dealers retail over 1 million KozaKs distributed to them by the T.I.E.D. (Tractor Implement & Equipment Distributors) which is another story. It tied in beautifully with our KozaK Radiograms on 45 spot radio stations at 10 P.M. EST at the end of the New York City chain programs which closed down at that time and did a fabulous advertising job for us for a while (which is still another story).”