Kellogg Company Headquarters, Michigan

Water power, located at the confluence of two rivers in Battle Creek, enabled mills to operate, forming flour from grain. By 1904 there were 42 cereal factories. Kellogg joined them when it was founded here in 1906. Their first product, Corn Flakes, were invented by accident at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, where Dr. John Harvey Kellogg was the medical superintendent from 1876 to 1942. He had unusual ideas about diet and health, and promoted a vegetarian diet, full of grains. When some wheat berries they had made had turned stale, they sent them through the press anyways, and out came flakes, which they baked, and people loved them. His Brother, Will K. Kellogg, who worked at the sanitarium too, left to establish the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flakes company, which became the Kellogg’s Company when it was renamed in 1922. It focused on breakfast cereals, and resisted expansion through acquisition for many years, unlike most of its competition, but eventually it did start buying other companies, like Keebler, Morningstar Farms, Cheez-It, then, in 2012, it finally became one of the largest snack companies, when it bought Pringles. It is now a $13 billion company. The company has a few production sites in Battle Creek, in addition to its headquarters building, which was constructed in 1985. In 1998, after it stopped offering tours of its nearby plant in Battle Creek, the company opened a $22 million visitors center next to its headquarters, called Cereal City, which was closed in 2007, due to low attendance.