John Crosby III (November 1, 1828 – December 29, 1887) was an American businessman. Crosby was a founding partner of the Washburn-Crosby Company, the forerunner to

General Mills General Mills, Inc., is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, the company orig ...

Career

Born in Hampden to John II and Anne K. Stetson, Crosby became heavily involved in the family

paper mill A paper mill is a factory devoted to making paper from vegetable fibres such as wood pulp, old rags, and other ingredients. Prior to the invention and adoption of the Fourdrinier machine and other types of paper machine that use an endless belt, ...

business, as well as an

iron foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

and

machine shop A machine shop or engineering workshop (UK) is a room, building, or company where machining, a form of subtractive manufacturing, is done. In a machine shop, machinists use machine tools and cutting tools to make parts, usually of metal or plast ...

in nearby Bangor. He then moved to

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

in 1877 and became involved in the milling industry there. Crosby purchased an interest in the Washburn "B" Mill, a predecessor to the

Washburn "A" Mill Mill City Museum is a Minnesota Historical Society museum in Minneapolis. It opened in 2003 built in the ruins of the Washburn "A" Mill next to Mill Ruins Park on the banks of the Mississippi River. The museum focuses on the founding and growth ...

, and developed a business partnership with

Cadwallader C. Washburn Cadwallader Colden Washburn (April 22, 1818May 14, 1882) was an American businessman, politician, and soldier who founded a mill that later became General Mills. A member of the Washburn family of Maine, he was a U.S. Congressman and governor o ...

, inventor of the middlings purifier, as well as a silent partnership with

William Hood Dunwoody William Hood Dunwoody (March 14, 1841 – February 8, 1914) was an American banker, miller, art patron and philanthropist. He was a partner in what is today General Mills and for thirty years a leader of Northwestern National Bank, today's Wells Fa ...

. In that year, they formed the Washburn-Crosby Company to produce

winter wheat Winter wheat (usually ''Triticum aestivum'') are strains of wheat that are planted in the autumn to germinate and develop into young plants that remain in the vegetative phase during the winter and resume growth in early spring. Classification ...

, and Crosby oversaw its expansion.

Legacy

Crosby remained a partner of the Washburn-Crosby Company until his death in 1887. He was buried at

Lakewood Cemetery Lakewood Cemetery is a large private, non-sectarian cemetery located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It is located at 3600 Hennepin Avenue at the southern end of the Uptown area. It is noted for its chapel which is on the National Re ...

. One of Crosby's sons, Franklin, took over the role for the business. The company became the forerunner to

. In 1924, Washburn-Crosby purchased the

WLAG WLAG (1240 AM, "Eagle Sports 1240 & 96.9") is a radio station broadcasting a sports format featuring programming from ESPN Radio. WLAG is licensed to serve the community of La Grange, Georgia, United States. The station is currently owned by Ea ...

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

and renamed it to WCCO, in honor of Crosby and his company. The station was used by

Betty Crocker Betty Crocker is a brand and fictional character used in advertising campaigns for food and recipes. The character was originally created by the Washburn-Crosby Company in 1921 following a contest in the '' Saturday Evening Post''. In 1954, ...

Personal life

In 1886, Crosby married Olive Loring Muzzy, daughter of Franklin Muzzy, a noted

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

. The couple had three children: Caroline, Franklin, and John IV. The marriage lasted until the death of Muzzy in 1876, and Crosby married his second wife, Emma Gilson, three years later. Through his son, Franklin, Crosby is the great-grandfather of

Sumner McKnight Crosby Sumner McKnight Crosby, Sr. (July 29, 1909 – November 16, 1982) was an American art historian, archaeologist, and educator. A scholar of medieval architecture, specially the Basilica of Saint-Denis, Crosby was Professor of Art History at Yale U ...

, a noted

art historian Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

References

External links

Find a Grave profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crosby, John 1828 births 1887 deaths People from Hampden, Maine 19th-century American businesspeople