Our History

A proud and checkered past.

In The Beginning

When Grover Cleveland Landalor began making his own socks in 1921 using scraps of wool he found in the streets outside a textile plant he hadn’t the slightest idea what his activities would lead to. Word of his comfortable socks spread and he was soon manufacturing nearly a thousand pairs a week from an old barn on his family’s large farm in Sheboygan, Wisconsin with his eight children working fourteen to fifteen hours a day at the looms. Production expanded in 1926 when Landalor began making hats and gloves. Business was so good that Landalor had to adopt more children to keep up with the growing demand. Sales continued to grow steadily until 1938 when president Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act which placed limits on many forms of child labor.

The Potato Years

This began a new chapter in the life of Landalor and his company. He divorced his wife of twenty years, sending her and their nineteen children off on their own, and married Valerie VanBuren, the daughter of a Midwestern oil tycoon. He promptly spent all of Valerie’s inheritance on research to create the world’s tastiest potato chip. After seeding his entire farm with potatoes, Landalor discovered a creative way to convert his sock making looms into potato slicing machines. The original shape of his new potato chips and the addictive flavor developed through his extensive research proved to be very popular. Landalor was once again in charge of a rapidly expanding business.

Bewildering Growth

Due to his unique chip production methods, Landalor created unusually large quantities of garbage. He became very efficient at disposing of this excess waste. So efficient in fact, that the U.S. government offered him a contract in 1943 to dispose of the nuclear waste they were creating at their first nuclear power plant. Landalor gladly accepted the contract and began spreading the uranium over his fields and pouring it in the nearby Mullet River. Landalor quickly realized that his potatoes were growing to unimaginable sizes. Production increased dramatically as did demand from repeat customers claiming they, “couldn’t get enough.”

Drug Deal

With all of the excess capital from his burgeoning potato chip company and his contract with the government, Landalor made a deal in 1954 to buy a small pharmaceutical company that was based across the lake in Muskegon, Michigan. Under Landalor’s leadership, the company grew to be the nation’s largest manufacturer of goat tranquilizers. Landalor spent nearly twice as much money on new drug research as his competitors. This resulted in many medical breakthroughs and patents that assured Landalor and his company millions of dollars over the decades to come.Click to add an engaging title. High quality images go a long way in looking professional online.