âHome of Sliced Breadâ: A small Missouri town champions its greatest thing
Otto Rohwedder
An original design of  Otto Rohwedderâs  bread slicer. (Greater Chillicothe Visitors Region)
 Rohwedder  didnât set out to become an inventor.  He  earned a degree in optics in 1900 from the Northern Illinois College of Ophthalmology and Otology in Chicago. Then  he  moved to Missouri  where  he  eventually operated three jewelry stores in St. Joseph  about 70 miles west of Chillicothe.
On the side   he  tinkered with a design for a mechanized bread slicer. In 1916   he  sold  his  jewelry business and moved back to  his  home town of Davenport  Iowa  to focus  his  energy on the slicer and recuperate from an illness.
 Otto Rohwedder   left  and Frank Bench (Greater Chillicothe Visitors Region/Chillicothe Constitution-Tribune)
 Rohwedder  wasnât the first to attempt making an automated bread slicer  according to the Atlantic: âWhile the earlier bread-cutting devices using parallel blades appear in America in the 1860s  they sat on the shelf for decades  awaiting the introduction of other machines capable of producing loaves of uniform shape  size and consistency.â
As he improved his invention   Rohwedder  sought feedback from homemakers to determine how thick to cut the slices (half an inch).  He  also had to find a way to ensure the bread would stay fresh once it was sliced. First   he  inserted large U-shaped pins at both ends of the bread to keep the pieces from separating. Then  he  created a process so that the bread was quickly sealed in a bag after being sliced.
âSliced bread was here to stay and the baking industry was beating a path to Rohwedderâs door â the Chillicothe newspaper reported. âOver the next 14 months   Rohwedder  took orders for more than 230 bread slicing machines from bakeries through the country.â
Although  Rohwedder  saw  his  vision realized   he  was forced to sell  his  patent rights in 1933 during the Great Depression  reportedly to the Micro-Westco Co. of Bettendorf  Iowa  where  he  became vice president and sales manager of the Rohwedder Bakery Machine Division.  He  died in Michigan in 1960 at age 80.
In Chillicothe  Bench ran  his  bakery a few more years before going into another line of work.
Chillicothe had other records to prove its claim. âWe had newspaper articles â a record of history â said Catherine Stortz Ripley  the Constitution-Tribuneâs editor and the journalist who rediscovered the townâs bread history. Additional documentation was found in  Otto Rohwedderâs  scrapbook  which  his  son shared during  his  visit.
Otto Rohwedderâs second automated bread-slicer was loaned to a Chillicothe museum by the Smithsonian Institution. The display features an image of baker Frank Bench. (Grand River Historical Society Museum/Smithsonian Institution)
An original design of   [TGT] âs  bread slicer. (Greater Chillicothe Visitors Region)
 Rohwedder  didnât set out to become an inventor.  He  earned a degree in optics in 1900 from the Northern Illinois College of Ophthalmology and Otology in Chicago. Then  he  moved to Missouri  where  he  eventually operated three jewelry stores in St. Joseph  about 70 miles west of Chillicothe.
On the side   he  tinkered with a design for a mechanized bread slicer. In 1916   he  sold  his  jewelry business and moved back to  his  home town of Davenport  Iowa  to focus  his  energy on the slicer and recuperate from an illness.
  [TGT]    left  and Frank Bench (Greater Chillicothe Visitors Region/Chillicothe Constitution-Tribune)
 Rohwedder  wasnât the first to attempt making an automated bread slicer  according to the Atlantic: âWhile the earlier bread-cutting devices using parallel blades appear in America in the 1860s  they sat on the shelf for decades  awaiting the introduction of other machines capable of producing loaves of uniform shape  size and consistency.â
As he improved his invention   Rohwedder  sought feedback from homemakers to determine how thick to cut the slices (half an inch).  He  also had to find a way to ensure the bread would stay fresh once it was sliced. First   he  inserted large U-shaped pins at both ends of the bread to keep the pieces from separating. Then  he  created a process so that the bread was quickly sealed in a bag after being sliced.
âSliced bread was here to stay and the baking industry was beating a path to Rohwedderâs door â the Chillicothe newspaper reported. âOver the next 14 months   Rohwedder  took orders for more than 230 bread slicing machines from bakeries through the country.â
Although  Rohwedder  saw  his  vision realized   he  was forced to sell  his  patent rights in 1933 during the Great Depression  reportedly to the Micro-Westco Co. of Bettendorf  Iowa  where  he  became vice president and sales manager of the Rohwedder Bakery Machine Division.  He  died in Michigan in 1960 at age 80.
In Chillicothe  Bench ran  his  bakery a few more years before going into another line of work.
Chillicothe had other records to prove its claim. âWe had newspaper articles â a record of history â said Catherine Stortz Ripley  the Constitution-Tribuneâs editor and the journalist who rediscovered the townâs bread history. Additional documentation was found in   [TGT] âs  scrapbook  which  his  son shared during  his  visit.
 [TGT] âs second automated bread-slicer was loaned to a Chillicothe museum by the Smithsonian Institution. The display features an image of baker Frank Bench. (Grand River Historical Society Museum/Smithsonian Institution)