Model Railroading > History of Kadee and Micro-Trains

I had to go look at the history here. Identical twins Dale and Keith Edwards were born in Chewelah, WA in 1921 and grew up there. They formed the Kadee Products Co in 1940 to make turnout kits, but suspended production during the war. After the war they moved to Spokane briefly, but following a cold winter moved to LA where they started to produce their first couplers, "K-series". They moved to Medford, OR in 1955 and developed the famous #5 couplers in 1956. The Micro-Trains line of N scale and later Z-scale cars started in the mid-1970's. In 1990 Keith founded the Micro-Trains Line as a seperate company to focus on just the N and Z scale products.
Keith retired in 2000 with Eric Smith taking over as President/CEO/Secretary of Micro-Trains. Kadee was still being run by Dale and his eldest son Larry at that time, but in 2003 Alan Vezzani took over as president of Kadee. Keith passed away in 2012, and Dale followed in 2014. Eric Smith is now 67 and apparently wanted to retire, so he sold out to Atlas.
Kadee had a history of wanting to keep the company in the family with the children holding all the positions on the board, and that appears to be the way things still are. Alan is the husband of Dale's youngest daughter.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/25 12:59 by funnelfan.

Thanks for the quick synopsis, Ted.
Dano

Very interesting! I had no idea where the Kadee name originated.