Our History

Preston Refrigeration Co. was started in 1947 by my Dad, Eugene T. Preston. Dad started to work for York Corp. in the early 1930’s. Bill Hutton, who had been a York Co. manager in St. Louis came to Kansas City, started Midwest Refrigeration Co. and asked Dad to come to work for him, Dad worked up to manager at Midwest and decided to go out on his own in 1947, right after the War.

Dad started out as a distributor for Howe Ice Machine Co. and learned much about business from C.W. Howe, then President of Howe. Dad had a lot of respect for Mr. Howe.

I started working summers at age 16 on Dad’s largest job, for Mountaire Farms in DeQueen, Ark. The plant is now owned by Tyson’s.

We installed 3, 5-1/2 x 5-1/2 , 2 cylinder Howe Compressors and 1, 6-1/2 x 6-1/2, 2 cylinder Howe, along with 2 Ice Makers, 4 evaporators, a suction accumulator and an evaporative condenser.
I threaded what seemed like miles of 2” pipe with a hand threader.

I joined the firm full time in 1955 and have been here ever since, except for a 2 year vacation with the U.S. Army in 1960-61. There was a draft at that time. Most of my time was spent at Ft. Campbell, Ky.

Dad was one of the first to use dry fan coil evaporators which were pioneered by W.E Gebhardt for use in Meat Packing Plants. Dad was also an advocate of pumped liquid recirculation systems and one of the first to utilize them.

Dad passed away in 1981 at age 68, shortly after receiving the largest contract of his career, for the new 1,000,000 sq. ft. Geo. Hormel Pork Plant in Austin, Minnesota. We ran 14 miles of pipe on that project.

Jim Salmons, Vice President, started working here in 1983 as an engineer. Jim also started in the industry when he was l6. Jim developed our Patented, Condensate Free Room and Rapid Chill Systems.

We are presently finishing work on the Triumph Foods Plant in St. Joseph, Missouri, one of the Largest Pork Plants in the World. We used 360 truckloads of pipe on this project and 7000 HP of compressors in the Engine Room. Triumph also has our Condensate Free Room and Rapid Chill System.