What would breakfast be like without flakes? The inventor of corn flakes was Will Keith Kellogg. He was born in Michigan in 1860. He went to school, but left at the age of fourteen to for his father. A few years later, he joined his brother John, who was a doctor at the Battle Creek Sanitarium. The was a health center where ill people went to feel better. Will worked at the sanitarium doing odd jobs to help his brother.
Will also helped his brother to make new, healthy foods for his patients. One day, Will cooked some wheat to make special bread but forgot about it for several hours. When he came back the wheat wasn't good anymore, but he decided to put the through rollers anyway. To his surprise, he noticed the grains became flakes. Will his brother to serve these flakes to his patients. The patients loved them. Will tried the same process with corn, and it worked even better.
By 1898, the brothers started a mail-order selling corn flakes. However, John was not interested in the food business. Will continued on his own and started the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company. In a few years, Kellogg's Corn Flakes became a name.
Will Kellogg became a millionaire, but he wasn't comfortable being rich. He continued to live in a house, and didn't want his children to become rich by money. He gave a lot of his wealth to many charities. In 1930, he started the W. K. Kellogg Foundation to help children, and in 1934, he gave more than $66 million to the Foundation. Will Kellogg died in 1951 at the age of 91. He worked at the until he died.
