Corn Flakes Were Invented at a Michigan Health Spa Run by an Eccentric Doctor

Your breakfast cereal owes its existence to a quirky wellness resort in Battle Creek, Michigan. The Battle Creek Sanitarium started in 1866 as the Seventh-day Adventists’ “Western Health Reform Institute.” In 1876, a young doctor named John Harvey Kellogg took over and gave it the name “sanitarium” — a word he basically coined to suggest a place where people “learn to stay well.”

Dr. Kellogg was a character. He wore all-white suits, sometimes with a pet cockatoo on his shoulder, led his guests in a “chewing song,” and prescribed a regimen of vegetarian food, exercise, fresh air, and (let’s just say) very thorough plumbing routines. Wealthy and famous people flocked to “the San” — presidents, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Amelia Earhart, and more. (It’s worth noting Kellogg was a complicated figure whose enthusiasm for eugenics has aged very poorly.)

The cereal came out of his quest for healthy, easy-to-digest foods. He and his brother Will Keith Kellogg were experimenting with boiled wheat when some of it sat out, and running it through rollers produced flakes instead of mush. They later did the same with corn. Will saw the gold mine his brother didn’t and founded the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company in 1906 — which became the Kellogg Company. A former patient named C.W. Post started his own rival cereal empire (Grape-Nuts, Post Toasties). The boom was so big that, according to the Calhoun County Visitors Bureau, “at one time there were more than 100 cereal companies registered in Battle Creek” — earning the city its nickname, “Cereal City.”