MILLIANS: He brought microwaves to Milledgeville

Published 8:24 am Monday, October 21, 2024

When Roy Phillips, the owner of Elliott’s Electronics, came home one day and told his wife Kate that he was selling microwaves, she had an immediate reaction:

“You’re not bringing one of those things into my house!”

Phillips laughed and said his wife grew up in Florida during the Cuban missile crisis when drills and Fallout Shelters were common, so all she knew was the negative connotation of the microwave technology.

Little did she know that her life and the lives of millions more were about to be changed by microwaves.

Microwaves had been around for a while but they were very expensive and very bulky. 

Then in the early ‘70s, Litton Industries introduced two home microwave ovens that were priced at $349 and $399. A Litton official said the expanding microwave‐oven market represented “the most exciting new product since TV.”

(By the way, $400 in 1970 would be more than $3,200 today.)

Let’s back up a little and explain that Roy Phillips had purchased Elliott’s Electronics in 1977 from Fred Elliott, who had purchased Nelson’s Electronics from Carl Nelson

The business was located on the ground floor of the Sanford Building, which was on the corner of North Wilkinson and Hancock streets, where the Baldwin County Courthouse now stands. Trapnall’s Shoe Store and Ed Medlin’s Insurance were on the ground floor of the same building. Upstairs were law offices, one of which featured prominently in the Marion Stembridge murders.

Up the street on North Wilkinson were the Sanford House restaurant, Piggly Wiggly and Trailways Bus Station.

Elliott’s became an authorized Litton Sales and Service Center, putting Phillips in the lead in selling microwaves in Milledgeville.

Georgia Power and Dempster’s starting selling Amana microwaves here about the same time, but Phillips had an advantage. The Litton Company helped him pay for local home economists — one full time and one parttime — that would provide training on how to use a microwave.

They would hold microwave cooking classes for women’s clubs, churches, schools, colleges — where ever.

Apprehension — and sometimes fear — of microwaves turned into, “Hey, this can make cooking a whole lot easier.”

Kate Phillips not only wound up with a microwave in her home, but she volunteered to wrap the microwaves as Christmas presents.  

“All these guys would come in, asking what they could buy their wives for Christmas,” Roy said. “I’d suggest a microwave and tell them Kate would wrap it.”

That first year, he sold 53 microwaves in two weeks. 

He had commercial microwave customers, too. Some of the kaolin companies would buy microwaves that cost $5,000 to heat up and test the clay.

Phillips, now retired, always seemed to be on the cutting edge as technology evolved.

You can tell it in how the name of the store changed: It went from Elliott’s Electronics to Elliott’s TV Service to Elliott’s TV and Computer Sales and Service.

He sold Zenith products, including TVs, stereos, video cameras and VCRs. “Zenith went digital before anybody,” he said.

He’s still got one of the first TV remote controls, which was light operated. You pointed what looked like a flashlight toward the TV to change the channel. 

It was called Zenith Space Command TV. George Burns and Gracie Allen made a commercial for Zenith, with George saying, “Look Gracie, I can change the programs from across the room!”

And to think, back then I was still getting up out of my chair to change the channel.

At one point, Phillips said he had more than $1 million in inventory of Zenith products.

He was involved in the computer business even before Microsoft existed. Zenith bought out HeathKit (Buy a kit and build your own TV!) to get some of the technology needed to build laptops.

Elliott’s also would install antennas — short and tall, as well as satellite dishes. Back then it might take 14 hours to install a satellite dish that would take 15 minutes to install today. 

“Most people thought we were just a small Radio/TV shop,” Phillips said, “but that was the least of it.” 

Well, I’m sitting here now after nuking some leftovers for supper and changing the channel with my remote from one baseball playoff game to another, thinking: “How did we ever live without microwaves and remote controls?”

Thanks, Roy, for the part you played.

—Rick Millians is retired after working at newspapers in Georgia, Ohio and South Carolina. Reach him at rdmillians@aol.com.