Electro-Magnetic Tool Co. was organized in December 1908 by George Herbert Rowe and others, in order to bring to market electric impact tools that were being designed and patented by Rowe. In January 1910 the company executed a "reverse takeover": they sold themselves to the Carthage & Western Illinois Electric Co., a company that had been organized in 1906 to operate an electric railway that was never built. The Electro-Magnetic Tool Co. was dissolved and then the Carthage & Western Illinois Electric Co. was renamed to the Electro-Magnetic Tool Co. reverse takeover is typically intended to sidestep the expensive process of becoming a publicly traded company by acquiring a moribund publicly traded company and then effectively becoming that firm; in this case, however, the railway company was not publicly traded so the purpose of the reverse takeover is unclear. From an outside perspective, this organizational change was largely invisible and the company carried on business as usual.

Before the above-mentioned 1910 corporate maneuvering, the company had already introduced their first product, the Model 5 electric hammer. Other models soon followed and over the next decade the company introduced a series of impact tools and regular electric drills. They had models intended for construction work, mining, and assembly-line work, including impact drills, rotary hammers, riveters, rock drills, rock chisels, etc.

In mid-1929 the company changed their name to SpeedWay Manufacturing Co., in recognition of the brand they were using on their increasingly popular line of handheld electric drills, hammers, screwdrivers and grinders. In 1954 they were acquired by Thor Power Tool Co.; the Speedway name continued for a few years before being phased out in favor of the Thor name.

Information Sources

• 1906-06-30 The Railway and Engineering Review page 496.

  The Carthage & Western Illinois Electric Co., Chicago, Ill., capital $2500, has been organized to operate an electric railway in Hancock county, Ill. The incorporators are: W. M. R. Vose, H. E. Page, M. H. Sadler.

• 1908 Metropolitan Management, Transportation and Planning, page 860. "Carthage & Western Illinois Electric Railway Organized July, 1906. No mileage constructed. Capital stock, issued and outstanding, $5,000. Funded debt, none. President, A. D. Ayres, Keokuk, Ia.; secretary and treasurer, Geo. E. ?. Johnson, Chicago."
• 1915 Annual Report of the Illinois Public Utilities Commission, page 1342: "Carthage & Western Illinois Electric Ry Co., Case No. 2891. Re application for authority to dissolve 265".
• Tool tag seen on eBay: "Electro-magnetic Tool Co. / Speed Way / Cicero Ill., Made in U.S.A. / Patented Nov. 1, 1921 - Nov. 23, 1926 / Sales & service in all principal cities".