| I have no idea how old I was when I first learned | | | | grains by subjecting them to intense heat and |
| about the famed Minnesota scientist and inventor | | | | pressure, greatly enlarged the kernels in so doing. |
| Alex P. Anderson, AKA Puffed Wheat Anderson. | | | | To do this he devised a large wooden gun. Albert |
| My Dad told me about him when I was eating a | | | | Lasker, an early advertising genius hired by the |
| bowl of cereal, you know, the one that's shot | | | | Quaker company, explained the process. The lab |
| from guns. Or doesn't Quaker use that line any | | | | must have been a hundred feet long. The |
| more? They sure did when I was growing up. I'd | | | | so-called gun was actually a drum that was |
| hear it a dozen times in a half hour when I used | | | | super-heated with the mouth covered. When it |
| to listen to Sgt. Preston of the Mounties as a | | | | reached the correct temperature, workers |
| six-years-old. I naturally wondered if he was a | | | | removed the cover with a pulley. The grains |
| relative. He wasn't, but I couldn't imagine how | | | | exploded out and flew wildly around, expanding to |
| shooting rice or wheat out of a cannon could | | | | eight times its original size in the process. Hedin |
| make them puff up. | | | | puts it more colorfully. "It made the lab sound like |
| I thought of that again as I was shopping in | | | | a battlefield, smell like a bakery and look like a |
| Byerly's, a local grocery store, and happened to | | | | snowy winter morning." |
| pass by the cereal section. I decided I wanted to | | | | Pleased with his invention, Anderson decided to |
| find out how it was done so when I got home, I | | | | show it off. Puffed rice made its premier |
| immediately looked up Anderson in Google. I | | | | appearance at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. A |
| wasn't prepared for the fascinating story | | | | minor hit as a novelty, it also caught the eye of |
| surrounding his life and accomplishments. Or the | | | | an unnamed executive of the Quaker cereal |
| Quaker company's marketing history, for that | | | | company in the process. |
| matter. | | | | In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, cereal |
| It seems that Alex Anderson could have been | | | | was considered to be a health food and the |
| famous for an entirely different reason. According | | | | Quaker company saw a virtual gold mine in |
| to a Minnesota Public Radio interview with Robert | | | | Anderson's process. They were right, but for the |
| Hedin, Anderson's grandson, Master Alex of | | | | wrong reason. Aftey they bought the rights they |
| Goodhue County was the youngster who gave | | | | spent a considerable amount of money |
| directions to the Jesse James gang about how to | | | | advertising the product to the Japanese. Puffed |
| get to Northfield, MN. Those of you who aren't up | | | | rice was ordinary rice, they said, but many times |
| on your folk history might not know that robbing | | | | larger and it took less to fill you up. Better still, it |
| the Northfield bank was the biggest mistake ole | | | | was delicious. The campaign turned out to be a |
| Jesse ever made. Two of his members were | | | | total flop. Lasker proved that Americans were |
| killed by the local townspeople and things got so | | | | the right target, so to speak, and under his |
| hot that the rest of the gang was lucky to | | | | tutelage 'shot from guns' became a household |
| escape with their lives. (An even more interesting | | | | word. No one needs to be reminded that the |
| coincidence from a personal standpoint, is that the | | | | Quaker company survives to this day selling the |
| gang camped out on the point in Cedar Lake near | | | | same products. |
| Annandale. Our lake cabin was just a couple of | | | | Anderson died in 1943 after donating his house to |
| hundred yards down the shore from where they | | | | the Red Wing School District. It turns out that he |
| cooked a meal and licked their wounds before | | | | became a patron of the arts. Now it is a haven |
| heading back to Missouri.) | | | | for writers and other artists. The Kiwanis hold |
| Hedin says that Anderson included an account of | | | | regular meetings there, making the residents sing |
| the fateful meeting in an essay about Silurian | | | | for their supper by reading Shelley and William |
| fossils. Alex was also interested in Phrenology and | | | | Blake. But that's not all. If you like modern art or |
| could tell you your personality by feeling the | | | | improvisational jazz, you'll find someone with those |
| bumps on your head. Even though he was a fine | | | | talents at the Anderson House. I wonder what |
| poet and memoirist, his greatest accomplishment | | | | Jesse James would have thought of it all. |
| was to invent a way to break down the starch in | | | | |