William Keith Kellogg (April 7, 1860 – October 6, 1951), generally referred to as W.K. Kellogg, was an American industrialist in food manufacturing, best known as the founder of the

Kellogg Company The Kellogg Company, doing business as Kellogg's, is an American multinational food manufacturing company headquartered in Battle Creek, Michigan, United States. Kellogg's produces cereal and convenience foods, including crackers and toas ...

, which produces a wide variety of popular breakfast cereals. He was a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and practiced vegetarianism as a dietary principle taught by his church. He also founded the Kellogg Arabian Ranch, which breeds Arabian horses. Kellogg was a philanthropist and started the Kellogg Foundation in 1934 with a $66-million donation.Kelloggs history, William Keith (W. K.) Kellogg legacy

Early career

As a young businessman, Kellogg started out selling brooms in his hometown of Battle Creek, Michigan. In December, 1878, W.K. Kellogg was hired by George H. King at the urging of

James Springer White James Springer White (August 4, 1821 – August 6, 1881), also known as Elder White, was a co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and husband of Ellen G. White. In 1849 he started the first Sabbatarian Adventist periodical entitled '' Th ...

, also known as Elder White, to help run his new broom factory in Dallas, Texas. W.K. returned home in November, 1879 to help his brother

John Harvey Kellogg John Harvey Kellogg (February 26, 1852 – December 14, 1943) was an American medical doctor, nutritionist, inventor, health activist, eugenicist, and businessman. He was the director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan. The ...

manage the

Battle Creek Sanitarium The Battle Creek Sanitarium was a world-renowned health resort in Battle Creek, Michigan, United States. It started in 1866 on health principles advocated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church and from 1876 to 1943 was managed by Dr. John H ...

. The Sanitarium, originally the Western Health Reform Institute, was part of a pioneering effort based on the health principles advocated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. John Kellogg described the Sanitarium system as "a composite physiologic method comprising hydrotherapy, phototherapy, thermotherapy, electrotherapy, mechanotherapy, dietetics, physical culture, cold-air cure, eugenics, and health training". Full text at Internet Archive (archive.org) The Kelloggs pioneered the process of making flaked cereal. Because of the commercial potential of the discovery, W.K. wanted it kept a secret. However, John allowed anyone in the sanitarium to observe the flaking process and one sanitarium guest, C. W. Post, copied the process to start his own company. That company became

Post Cereals Post Consumer Brands (previously Post Cereals and Postum Cereals; also known as simply "Post") is an American breakfast cereal manufacturer headquartered in Lakeville, Minnesota. The company, founded in 1895 by C. W. Post, owns a large portfoli ...

and later

General Foods General Foods Corporation was a company whose direct predecessor was established in the United States by Charles William Post as the Postum Cereal Company in 1895. The company changed its name to "General Foods" in 1929, after several corporate ...

, the source of Post's first million dollars. This upset W.K. to the extent that he left the sanitarium to create his own company.

Kellogg cereals

Together with his brother J.H. Kellogg, W.K. Kellogg promoted cereals, especially

corn flakes Corn flakes, or cornflakes, are a breakfast cereal made from toasting flakes of corn (maize). The cereal, originally made with wheat, was created by Will Kellogg in 1894 for patients at the Battle Creek Sanitarium where he worked with his bro ...

(

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...

), as a healthy breakfast food. They started the Sanitas Food Company around 1897, focusing on the production of their whole-grain cereals. At the time, the standard breakfast for the well-off was eggs and meat, while the poor ate porridge, farina,

gruel Gruel is a food consisting of some type of cereal—such as ground oats, wheat, rye, or rice—heated or boiled in water or milk. It is a thinner version of porridge that may be more often drunk rather than eaten. Historically, gruel has been a ...

and other boiled grains. The brothers eventually argued over the addition of sugar to their product. In 1906, Will founded the ''Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company'', which later became the

. In 1930, he established the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, ultimately donating $66 million to it. His company was one of the first to put nutrition labels on foods. He also offered the first inside-the-box

prize A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people (such as sporting teams and organizations) to recognize and reward their actions and achievements.

for children. Kellogg said, "I will invest my money in people." During the Great Depression, Kellogg directed his cereal plant to work four shifts, each lasting six hours. This gave more people in Battle Creek the opportunity to work during that time.

Arabian horse breeder

Kellogg had a longtime interest in Arabian horses. In 1925, he purchased for $250,000 in

Pomona, California Pomona is a city in Los Angeles County, California. Pomona is located in the Pomona Valley, between the Inland Empire and the San Gabriel Valley. At the 2020 census, the city's population was 151,713. The main campus of California State Pol ...

, to establish an Arabian horse ranch. Starting with breeding stock descended from the imports of

Homer Davenport Homer Calvin Davenport (March 8, 1867 – May 2, 1912) was a political cartoonist and writer from the United States. He is known for drawings that satirized figures of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, most notably Ohio Senator Mark Hanna. Alt ...

and W. R. Brown, Kellogg then looked to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, where he purchased a significant number of horses from the

Crabbet Arabian Stud The Crabbet Arabian Stud, also known as the Crabbet Park Stud, was an English horse breeding farm that ran from 1878 to 1972. Its founder owners, husband and wife team Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and Lady Anne Blunt, decided while travelling in the Mi ...

, making multiple importations during the 1920s. The Kellogg ranch became well known in southern California not only for its horse breeding program but also for its entertaining, weekly horse exhibitions, open to the public and frequently visited by assorted Hollywood celebrities. Among many other connections to Hollywood, the actor Rudolph Valentino borrowed the Kellogg stallion "Jadaan" for his 1926 movie ''

Son of the Sheik ''The Son of the Sheik'' is a 1926 American silent adventure/drama film directed by George Fitzmaurice and starring Rudolph Valentino and Vilma Bánky. The film is based on the 1925 romance novel ''The Sons of the Sheik'' by Edith Maude Hull, a ...

'', along with a Kellogg employee,

Carl Raswan Carl Reinhard Raswan (7 March 1893 – 14 October 1966), born Carl Reinhard Schmidt, was one of the greatest connoisseurs and patrons of the '' asil'' Arabian horse. He authored numerous books on Arabian horses and the Bedouin people who raised t ...

, who rode in certain scenes as Valentino's stunt double. In 1932, Kellogg donated the ranch, which had grown to , to the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...

. In 1933, the ranch obtained some of the horses sold in the dispersal of Brown's Maynesboro stud. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, the ranch was taken over by the U.S. War Department and was known as the Pomona Quartermaster Depot (Remount). In 1948, the ranch was transferred to the

U.S. Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of comme ...

; and in 1949, the land was deeded to the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Later in 1949, title to the then ranch and horses was passed to the State of California, with the provision that the herd of Arabian horses must be maintained. The ranch became part of the Voorhis unit of what was then known as the California Polytechnic State College in

San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo (; Spanish for " St. Louis the Bishop", ; Chumash: ''tiłhini'') is a city and county seat of San Luis Obispo County, in the U.S. state of California. Located on the Central Coast of California, San Luis Obispo is roughly hal ...

. This became known as the Kellogg Campus, and in 1966, it was separated to form California State Polytechnic College, Kellogg-Voorhis. The ranch was also the location of the W. K. Kellogg Airport (not to be confused with the airport of the same name in Battle Creek, Michigan). It operated from 1928 to 1932, and was then the largest privately owned airport in the country. Some of Kellogg's property near Battle Creek was donated to Michigan State College and is now the Kellogg Biological Station.

Death

Will Keith Kellogg died at the age of 91 in Battle Creek, Michigan, on October 6, 1951, of circulatory illness. Kellogg outlived most of his children but was survived by two of them, Karl Hugh (d. 1955) and Elizabeth Ann (d. 1966), as well as grandson Norman Williamson, Jr. (d. 2001) and Will Keith Kellogg II (d. 2005).

Philanthropy

The Kellogg Foundation quotes W.K. as follows:

It is my hope that the property that kind Providence has brought me may be helpful to many others, and that I may be found a faithful steward.

The philanthropy of W. K. Kellogg is recognized as instrumental to the founding of

California State Polytechnic University, Pomona California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona, CPP, or Cal Poly"Cal Poly" may also refer to California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in San Luis Obispo. See the ''California State Polytechnic University, Pomo ...

(Cal Poly Pomona) and Kellogg College, Oxford.The Philanthropy Hall of Fame
W.K. Kellogg
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References

Sources

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