The Hickok Electrical Instrument Co.
Atlanta, Georgia (1910)

The Hickok Electrical Instrument Co.
6536 Carnegie Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio (1913)
10514 Dupont Ave., Cleveland 8, Ohio (1914)

Hickok Incorporated (from 1995)
10514 Dupont Ave., Cleveland, OH 44108-1399 (2010)

Hickok Manufacturing Group (formerly Supreme Instruments)
1714 Carrolton Ave., Greenwood MS 38930-5818 (2010)

Robert D. Hickok entered the retail jewelry business in Greenville, Michigan, at the age of 18. In 1900 he moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where he was in charge of the watch department of the Charles W. Crankshaw Co. In 1910 he began the manufacture of electrical measuring instruments in a small building behind his home in Atlanta under the name of The Hickock Electrical Instrument Co.

In 1913 he moved the company to Cleveland, Ohio, and a year later bought a building from one of his customers for $15,000 (part of which were paid in meters) at the still current address. In 1915, Hickok was incorporated as an Ohio corporation.

The company entered the market of tube testers after WW1, offering a variety of testers, scopes and meters. From 1936 onwards, they also developed electrical aircraft instruments (notably the A.N. Universal type resistance thermometer).

By the end of the 1950s Hickok had manufactured approximately fifty different, highly specialized electronic testers. In the period after WWII, they continued operations in the testing and measurement market, as well as developing and manufacturing precision indicators and meters for aircraft, locomotive, and industrial applications.

In 1956, Hickok purchased Supreme Instruments Corp., which still manufactures a majority of Hickok products as a division of Hickok Inc.

By the mid 1960s, Hickok was active in six different market areas:

• Commcercial Test Equipment
• Laboratory and Industrial Test Equipment
• Meters and Electrical Indicating Instruments
• Systems Control Equipment
• Government Contracts
• Teaching Systems

In the 1970s they moved from the servicing market to focusing on measurement instrumentation for engineers and designers. In the following decade, they entered the market of automotive diagnostic systems.

As electrical instruments only played a minor role in the spectrum of products the company offered, the name was changed to Hickok Incorporated in 1995.