William Wrigley, Jr.

• Born: September 30, 1861
• Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Died: January 26, 1932
• Place of death: Phoenix, Arizona

American chewing gum magnate

Wrigley made his fortune in the chewing gum industry, using his wealth to become the owner of the Chicago Cubs baseball team and to purchase Catalina Island, off the coast of Los Angeles.

Sources of wealth: Manufacturing; sale of products; investments; real estate; sports franchise

Bequeathal of wealth: Spouse; children

Early Life

William Mills Wrigley (RIHG-lee), Jr., was born on September 30, 1861, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents, William Wrigley, Sr., and Mary Ann Ladley Wrigley, had married on December 3, 1860. William, Sr., was a soap maker, and in 1870 he founded the Wrigley Manufacturing Company, which made Wrigley’s Scouring Soap. William, Jr., and a friend ran away to Manhattan at age eleven, where William worked selling newspapers. He soon returned to Philadelphia and quit school at age thirteen to work for his father. He made $1.50 a week stirring a vat of liquid soap in the factory and later became a soap salesman. As a teenager, Wrigley traveled from city to city, convincing merchants to carry Wrigley’s Scouring Soap in their stores. He married Ada Foote in 1885, and their daughter Dorothy was born in July, 1886; eight years later, the couple had a son, Philip.

First Ventures

In 1891, Wrigley and his family moved to Chicago. He had $32 in his pocket when they arrived, and he borrowed $5,000 from his uncle, William Scotchard. The only condition of the loan was that Wrigley would make his cousin a partner in the William Wrigley Jr. Company. This firm soon began selling Wrigley’s Scouring Soap, and Wrigley began offering free gifts with the purchase of his product. Initially, he offered cans of baking powder, but he soon found that baking powder was more popular than scouring soap. He then began to sell baking powder instead. He continued offering premiums, including two packs of chewing gum with each purchase. Wrigley again found that his premium was more marketable than his product. In 1892, he contracted the Zero Manufacturing Company to produce his chewing gum. Wrigley’s first two gum products were Lotta Gum for children and men and Vassar gum for women.

Mature Wealth

Wrigley traveled by train around the country, trying to sell his gum to store owners. During the first year, he spent 187 nights on the road. The company sold many different types of gum, including Juicy Fruit, which was introduced in 1893. The following year, Wrigley started selling his own brand of Spearmint gum, a product that no other company had been able to make profitable. Wrigley was involved in all aspects of his company, even designing the now-famous Spearmint gum arrow wrapper.

The chewing gum industry at the end of the nineteenth century was a highly competitive business. In 1899, the six largest gum makers in the country joined together to create a chewing gum trust. Wrigley was invited to join, but he declined, determined to make it on his own. The heavy competition, however, took a toll on Wrigley’s business, which in the early years was often close to bankruptcy.

Wrigley spent large amounts of money on premiums and advertising. He placed advertisements in magazines and newspapers and produced posters. His sales motto became “Tell ’em quick and tell ’em often.” During an economic downturn in 1907, Wrigley spent $284,000 on advertising, which in more prosperous years would have cost $1.5 million. Most of these advertisements promoted Wrigley’s Spearmint gum. He added a variety of free gifts, including fishing tackle, lamps, coffee makers, cash registers, store displays, cutlery, guns, razors, and cookbooks. In 1909, the William Wrigley Jr. Company earned more than $1.34 million in sales revenue. By the following year, Wrigley’s Spearmint was the best-selling gum in the United States.

In 1910, Wrigley expanded his business into Canada. The following year, he bought out the Zero Manufacturing Company and began creating his own products. Doublemint gum was introduced in 1914. Wrigley further expanded his company to Australia in 1915 and Great Britain in 1927. Businessman L. P. Larson sued Wrigley in 1911 for alleged trademark infringement regarding the trademark of Wrigley’s Spearmint gum. After seventeen years of litigation, the courts ordered Wrigley to pay damages of $1.9 million.

Wrigley was a baseball fan, and he invested in the Chicago Cubs in 1917. He purchased Catalina Island for $2 million in 1919. This rocky island off the coast of Los Angeles is twenty-two miles long and eight miles wide. To promote tourism on the island, he held the Wrigley Ocean Marathon in 1927, awarding $25,000 to the first man who would swim to the island from the mainland; the first woman to complete the twenty-two-mile swim would receive $15,000. Canadian George Young was the only person to finish the race out of a field of 102, completing the swim in fifteen hours and forty-four minutes; the two women who came the closest each received $2,500. The Chicago Cubs used the island for spring training from 1921 until 1951, with the exception of the years during World War II. Wrigley became the majority owner of the Cubs in 1924, and three years later, the team’s stadium in Chicago was renamed Wrigley Field.

In 1920, construction began on the Wrigley Building in Chicago. The location that Wrigley chose for his headquarters was a triangular-shaped lot in what is now the business district above Michigan Avenue. The building was designed after the Giralda Tower of the Seville Cathedral in Seville, Spain, combined with French Renaissance architecture. The structure features two towers of differing heights and is covered in glazed terra cotta, giving the facade a gleaming, white exterior. The Wrigley Building is occasionally hand-washed in order to preserve the terra cotta. The south tower is thirty stories high and was completed in 1921; the north tower is twenty-one stories high and was not completed until 1924. The Wrigley Building has become one of the most famous landmarks in Chicago.

By the time of his death in 1932, Wrigley had factories in Chicago, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Toronto, London, Berlin, Frankfurt, and Sydney. His company was earning $75 million in annual sales revenue, of which Wrigley received profits of around $12 million. He had invested in a variety of other businesses, including railroads, banks, mines, and hotels. Wrigley owned the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona, where he was staying when he died. He left his fortune to his wife and two children. His estate was estimated to be worth at least $22.5 million, which did not include his homes and property in California and Arizona.

Legacy

William Wrigley, Jr., is known for his love of baseball generally, and of the Chicago Cubs specifically, and he rarely missed a Cubs home game. He also played an important role in the history of Catalina Island. Wrigley improved the island by building hotels, public utilities, the Casino dance hall, and steamships to transport visitors. He also had trees, shrubs, and flowers planted on the island. Wrigley loved Catalina, refused to sell it on several occasions, and wanted to make it available to the public. In 1972, his son Philip K. Wrigley created the Catalina Island Conservancy and transferred ownership of the island to this organization. In addition to developing Catalina, Wrigley constructed the Wrigley Building, an architectural landmark; expanded Wrigley Field, which was designated a local landmark in 2003; and created several of the most popular, best-selling chewing gums in the world.

Bibliography

Cremin, Dennis, and Elan Penn. Chicago: A Pictorial Celebration. New York: Sterling, 2006. A history of Chicago told through its most famous landmarks, including a chapter on the Wrigley Building. Features several photographs and discusses the Wrigley Building’s history and architecture.

Hall, M. C. The Life of William Wrigley, Jr. Chicago: Heinemann-Raintree Library, 2005. A children’s book that recounts the history of chewing gum and the life of William Wrigley, Jr., including his childhood, love of baseball, and life outside the world of chewing gum.

Hambleton, Ronald. The Branding of America: From Levi Strauss to Chrysler, from Westinghouse to Gillette, the Forgotten Founders of America’s Best-Known Brand Names. Dublin, N.H.: Yankee Books, 1987. Recounts the little-known stories behind some of America’s most famous brand names and the people who created these products, including Wrigley.

Mathews, Jennifer. Chicle: The Chewing Gum of the Americas. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2009. A complete history of gum in the Americas, starting with the sap gathered by the Maya and the Aztecs through the rivalries of the chewing gum industry, including information about the role of Wrigley.

Shea, Stuart. Wrigley Field: The Unauthorized Biography. Dulles, Va.: Potomac Books, 2006. More than a history of Wrigley Field, this biography places the ballpark in the larger context of Chicago and American history. Begins with the field’s construction in 1914 through the present. Includes several photographs and anecdotes.