In the closing years of the eighteenth century, with masterful craftsmanship and an eye for genteel refinement, the Patriot gas parlor stove—christened Pearl—was wrought into existence. Fashioned with delicate cast-iron scrollwork and a glass front that once shimmered with ethereal blue flame, she was designed not merely to warm a chamber, but to grace it with a presence befitting the most distinguished quarters. In her earliest days, she stood in faithful service within a tailor’s shop in St. Louis, casting her soft and steady glow upon the polished wood floors and fresh-pressed suits that bespoke the quiet dignity of well-appointed attire.

Decades later, Pearl now rests in the JNT Company office in Manhattan, Kansas—no longer lit, but still radiating charm from the corner of a modern workspace. Employees pass her daily, unaware of the stories she holds: the quiet stitching of suits, the hum of early commerce, the dignity of a little stove that’s weathered over a century with grace and grit.