Wooton Desk"A place for everything and everything in its place."
The above phrase became a tag line for "The King of Desks," the remarkable office furniture created by William S. Wooton of Indianapolis in 1874. Wooton, who had been engaged in furniture manufacturing since 1859, opened his own desk company in 1870. His patent for a cabinet office secretary on October 6, 1874, marked the birth of an enduring symbol of Victorian business. Wooton desks are best known for their high number of compartments, allowing records and office supplies to be neatly stored in one place. The most familiar desks had doors that opened to either side, revealing interior pigeon-holes and compartments (see image of opened desk at below, right). The main body of the desk had a drop-down writing surface, and yes, more pigeon-holes and compartments. Executives could have all that was needed to maintain business and personal affairs within easy reach. 
The Wooton Cabinet Office Secretary satisfied the Victorian love of order. It came in four grades--Ordinary, Standard, Extra, and Superior--the ornamentation increasing with each higher grade. John D. Rockefeller, Ulysses S. Grant, Joseph Pulitzer, and (perhaps) England's Queen Victoria owned one. The Standard Grade desk pictured here was the most popular. It could be purchased for between $135 and $165. This desk, in the collections of the Kansas Historical Society's Kansas Museum of History, originally was purchased in 1881 for use by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction in his Capitol office. Jess W. Miley was the last superintendent to use it before it was transferred to the Society in 1925. 
William Wooton's company closed in 1893, with the rights to the patent desk sold the following year, but Wooton himself may have been out of the business as early as 1880. The Wooton style desk lived on a few more years, the last being produced in 1897. William Wooton died in Denver at the age of 72 on August 26, 1907. He had moved around quite a bit during his lifetime, and is known to have resided in Wichita, Kansas for a time.
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