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Peppermint oil bottle, Todd Farm

Object/Artifact
Glass bottle of peppermint oil from the A.M. Todd farm. A few shards of the brittle, detached label remain. Bottle is packed inside a decorated box. 2021.07.42
Peppermint oil bottle, Todd Farm picture number 1
cr1892090901BigMoneyRaisingPeppermint.jpg 170KB; Article encouraging Kalamazoo-valley farmers to grow peppermint Peppermint oil bottle, Todd Farm picture number 3 From Kit Lane’s “Fennville Area: Fruit Belt of Western Allegan Co., Michigan.”; By 1913, Campania had 17 buildings including worker housing, store, school, barns, mint distilleries, hotel, bath house, residences. Hundreds of people worked the farm in the summer. Todd, who based his business in Kalamazoo, also developed a profit-sharing plan for his workers. Besides mint, Todd’s Fennville farm grew sugar beets, hemp for rope, onions, celery, potatoes and corn. By 1924, a disease began ravaging the West Michigan mint plants and the demand for the West Michigan product declined. Game area The Todd site became a state game reservation in 1950. It is a refuge for Canada geese whose annual migration spawned the Fennville Goose Festival in 1985 that brings visitors to the community in October. The Todd plantation buildings were eventually taken apart or relocated. One is now at the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners. Todd died Oct. 6, 1931. In his life, he had run unsuccessfully for governor but was elected to Congress. He traveled the world and his donations of rare artifacts helped establish the Kalamazoo Public Museum in 1927. His collections of art and rare manuscripts are housed at Western Michigan University and the University of Michigan. The A.M. Todd Company remained in business and was sold to a Swiss company in 2011 then Archer Daniels Midland in 2014. Source: https://bicyclebasefennville.wordpress.com/2022/07/04/on-the-road-again-ride-through-the-realm-of-the-peppermint-king/

2012.56.05

In 1895, Albert May Todd purchased a large peppermint farm in the marshy mucklands of Allegan County, near the town of Fennville. He set to work improving the farm he renamed Campania, directing the digging of more than ten miles of drainage ditches and straightening the stream that flowed across the property.[22] He established a second plantation he called Mentha in Van Buren County, west of Kalamazoo. Source: https://minnstate.pressbooks.pub/peppermintkings/chapter/crystal-white/

Objects: historical artifactsIndustry and manufacturing1870 Fruit growing, farming, agriculture

Winthers, Sally

4 in

1-1/2 in

1/2 in

Sec 4E Shelf S12

Todd, Albert M. 1850-1931

08/06/2012

08/27/2024