Charles William Post was born in Springfield, Illinois on October 26, 1854. His father was Charles Rollin Post, and his mother was Caroline Cushman Lathrop. Young Charles graduated from high school, then he attended what was then called, the “Illinois Industrial University.” (Today it’s known as the “University of Illinois”.) Post dropped out of college after just two years in search of work. His search found him becoming a salesman, and even a store owner. Post even invented and patented several pieces of farm equipment. But Charles William Post’s real calling would come much later in life, at a low period, when he became “The Inventor of Post Cereals.”
While young Post’s working life was industrious, his private life had its shares of ups and down. Twenty-year-old Charles William Post married a woman named Ella Letitia Merriweather on November 4, 1874. The union produced a daughter, Marjorie Merriweather Post. The marriage lasted thirty years, but the final seven years found the couple separated. They divorced in 1904.
C.W. Post married again on November 7, 1874, to a woman named Leila Young from Battle Creek, Michigan.
In between those years, in 1892, when Post was thirty-eight years old, his health failed him. He went to the Battle Creek Sanitarium to recover from his illness. Interestingly enough, the sanitarium was owned and operated by a man named Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. Kellogg believed that a combination of proper diet, exercise, good posture, fresh air, and sufficient rest would keep people healthy and well. Kellogg’s beliefs interested C.W. Post while he stayed at the doctor’s institution. The doctor’s “prescriptions” would profoundly change one of his patient’s lives. They would enable Post to become “The Inventor of Post Cereals.”
After he left the Battle Creek Sanitarium, Charles William Post bought a small farm in the area. He started a company named, the “Postum Cereal Company.” He then began to study how foods affected people’s well-beings. Experimenting in his barn on his farm, Post first invented a cereal beverage that he named “Postum.” The year was 1895 and “Postum” was promoted as a healthy substitute for coffee.
Two years later, Post finally invented the first of his cereals when he came up with the formula for “Grape Nuts”. C.W. Post’s “Grape Nuts” was the first “ready-to-eat” cold cereal. Another breakfast cereal, which was originally named “Elijah’s Manna” came along in 1904. It was later renamed “Post Toasties.”
When Charles William Post wasn’t inventing cereals, he wrote his own advertising copy. Besides producing tasty, nutritious cereals and a cereal beverage, Post’s advertising methods were quite effective to sell his products. He offered free samples, coupons, product demonstrations and free recipes. These methods of advertising were practically unheard of before Post began using them.
The Inventor of Post Cereals began a cereal business that thrived and grew throughout the years. C.W. Post’s cereals gave the world a healthy, affordable way to start their days off right. Post Cereals became one of the wealthiest, as well as one of the best-known, businesses of that era.
Charles William Post, the man who invented Post Cereals, died on May 9, 1914 in California. He was recovering from an appendectomy surgery.
Today, the company he started is known as the “Post Division of Kraft Foods”, and it’s still located in Battle Creek, Michigan. The company has expanded so that it now covers forty acres of land. C.W. Post’s barn, where he started his inventing his cereal products in, still stands on the same spot.
The legacy of the Inventor of Post Cereals also lives on at the Long Island University in New York. Post’s daughter, Marjorie Merriweather Post Hutton, donated the land where the “C.W. Post Campus” is located at. The campus was started in 1954 on the the 100th anniversary of Post’s birth.
