Lawrence decided to retire in 1949. His brothers were eager to keep the highly profitable appliance side of the business. But without Lawrence’s expertise, the brothers were not interested in the refrigeration business. Instead of letting it die, Lawrence split that part of the business off between his sons: Tom, Warren and Matt into the newly created, Butcher Refrigeration. To house the new company, Lawrence built a modest building of their use on the corner of East Third and Orange Streets-now North Evangeline Thruway, and rented the building to them until they could buy it on their own.
The first year of business, they sold a total of 15 air conditioners. Most of their business back then was installing commercial refrigeration equipment. Butcher sold mainly window units at first and gradually ventured into the whole house and commercial cooling and heating. With the coming of the oil industry, came many good jobs. People started to build nicer homes. Air Conditioning began to move from a luxury to a necessity. By 1953, Butcher Refridgeration sold over 300 units. The brothers were approached by General Electric to become a distributor and the business started to grow. Increasingly, air conditioners started to dominate the brother’s business, so in 1955, the company changed its name again to Butcher Air Conditioning.