C. W. Post

Charles William Post was born on October 26, 1854, in Springfield, Illinois, to Charles Rollin Post and Caroline Lathrop Post. He graduated from public schools and attended Illinois Industrial University for two years without earning a degree, preferring practical work. Post worked as a traveling salesman for agricultural machinery, invented farm implements like plows and hay-stackers, and married Ella Letitia Merriweather in 1874; they had one daughter, Marjorie. Financial strains and overwork led to a nervous breakdown in 1885, prompting a move to Texas in 1886 for real estate development in Fort Worth, where he platted subdivisions and built mills on 200 acres. In 1891, a second breakdown sent Post to the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan, run by John Harvey Kellogg, where a grain-based vegetarian diet inspired his food ventures. Rejecting coffee's harms, he launched Postum Cereal Company in 1895 with the coffee substitute Postum, followed by Grape-Nuts in 1897 and Post Toasties in 1904. Aggressive advertising propelled these to massive success, making him a multimillionaire by century's end. Post's ambitions extended to utopian real estate: in 1906, he founded Post City (now Post, Texas) on 225,000 acres in Garza County, platting farms, building infrastructure like hotels, schools, churches, and a department store for a self-sustaining community. He divorced Ella in 1904 against her wishes and married secretary Leila Young, straining family ties; Marjorie later blamed her mother's 1914 death on a 'broken heart.' Battling manic-depressive episodes, overwork, and anti-union activism, Post underwent appendicitis surgery in 1914, then died by suicide two months later amid melancholy. His legacy endured through daughter Marjorie Merriweather Post, who inherited Postum Ltd., which became General Foods in 1929 under her husband Edward F. Hutton, acquiring brands like Jell-O.