Chillicothe Baking Company; Sliced Bread Innovation Center

Although most know the phrase "the greatest invention since sliced bread," few know there was a time when one could not purchase presliced bread. Inventor, engineer, and entrepreneur Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Iowa (1880-1960) became known as the "Father of Sliced Bread" when he developed the first commercial automatic bread-slicing machine and sold it to the Chillicothe Bakery. This Missouri company became the first bakery to sell sliced bread to area stores, a fact that local historians have rediscovered in recent decades. With community members embracing this history, markers were erected along with annual celebrations. This downtown building is now home to the Sliced Bread Innovation Center. This story one of many that celebrate the "Highway of the American Genius" (Missouri Highway 36), home to numerous historical inventors and invention sites related to inventors and innovators from Walt Disney to Mark Twain. 

Otto Fredrick Rohwedder's father Claus immigrated from Germany to the United States in 1866 and settled in Davenport, Iowa. He married fellow German immigrant Elizabeth Margarette, and the couple had four sons, including Otto. Claus worked as a stone mason contractor, but Otto initially chose a different occupation, attending Northern Illinois College of Ophthalmology and Otology in Chicago from 1900 to 1904. In 1905, one year after graduation, Otto F. married and moved to St. Joseph, Missouri, where Rohwedder pursued a career as a jeweler, owning and managing three jewelry stores. Meanwhile, he began experimenting with new engineering ideas. In 1912, Otto Fredrick devised a plan to design a mechanized bread slicer and, four years later, returned to Davenport to construct his design, only to have the factory that housed the prototype machine and its blueprints burn down in 1917.

Meanwhile, Marion Franklin (Frank) Bench was born in November 1883 in Utica, Missouri. Around 1905, Bench graduated from Bayless Business College in Dubuque, Iowa. His first venture into the restaurant and hospitality industry came in 1913 when Bench acquired a restaurant in Browning, Missouri. Three years later, in 1916, he opened his first bakery, Bench's Modern Steam Bakery in Chillicothe, which came to be known for its substantial and unique bread production. 

Bench gave away 1,500 loaves of bread for free when it opened as a promotion, aided by the bakery's machinery and large oven that allowed the bakers to produce up to 700 loaves per hour. By 1919, the business added ovens and equipment, increasing production to 1,300 loaves per hour. The volume of bread created by Bench's bakery allowed him to open a second, more expansive bakery and sell his bread to forty towns outside of Chillicothe. By 1921, Bench's Chillicothe Baking Company added to its bread-making fame when the bakery collaborated with the W. E. Long Company (food laboratory) in Chicago. They produced their scientific-based "Kleen Maid" bread, notably the popular split-top loaf.

Rohwedder and Bench forged a relationship in 1922 when Chillicothe Business College invited J. E. Drysdale & Company, an investment firm, to send a guest speaker to teach about sales; Rohwedder served as that guest speaker. One year later, in 1923, the Drysdale firm backed a deal with Bench and the Micro Machine Company of Bettendorf, Iowa (near Davenport) to manufacture Bench's folding metal bread box, which allowed Bench to expand his bread-shipping sales by shipping his bread via the U.S. Postal Service. Rohwedder collaborated with Bench on the design of the shipping container. The duo joined forces again in 1925 when they designed a bread rack for storing and displaying bread; they patented it in 1926. 

Although Bench's bakery business enjoyed success, two fires in 1926 and again in 1927 hobbled the Bench's Chillicothe Baking Company. In 1928, Bench again contacted Rohwedder in hopes of saving his financially troubled bakery from bankruptcy. Rather than invent another new product, Bench sought to purchase the bread-slicing machine Rohwedder first devised in 1912, which Rohwedder ceased creating in 1917 after a fire destroyed his Davenport factory. From the ashes of those fires came the invention that revolutionized bread sales. On July 7, 1928, Bench's Chillicothe Baking Company sold the first recorded loaves of sliced bread to area grocery stores. In addition to slicing bread, the machine wrapped and sealed the bread.

Bench's Chillicothe Baking Company again seemed poised for success, selling its bread locally and shipping it to other locations, but the October 1929 stock market crash and ensuing Great Depression severely hurt the company. Indeed, Bench closed his bakery by 1931. Al Burnett purchased the Chillicothe Banking Company Bakery building from Bench, remodeled the building, and installed new equipment. Although the financial circumstances associated with the Great Depression forced Rohwedder to sell the rights of his machine to Micro-West Co. of Bettendorf, Iowa, the company also hired him as a vice president and sales manager of its newly formed Rohwedder Bakery Machine Division. Despite the national economic decline, sliced bread sales soared (especially when Wonder Bread burst onto the scene with its own sliced bread). By 1933, Americans purchased more pre-sliced loaves than unsliced bread; the greatest invention was here to stay. 

The building, now home to the Sliced Bread Innovation Center, survives as a reminder of the invention that, tongue-in-cheek, set the bar for all future inventions. It's one of many buildings preserved along Missouri's Highway 36, referred to as the "Highway of the American Genius," where one will find numerous landmarks tied to inventions, inventors, and creators. 

Gee, Glyne. "Chillicothe Missouri Baking Company Bakery: Home of the Sliced Bread." Historic Missouri. University of Central Missouri Department of History. Accessed July 3, 2024. https://historicmissouri.org/items/show/169.

Nix, Elizabeth. "Who Invented Sliced Bread?." History.com. March 28, 2023. https://www.history.com/news/who-invented-sliced-bread.

"Otto Rohwedder: Bread-Slicing Machine." Lemelson MIT. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Accessed July 4, 2024. https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/otto-rohwedder.