J R Simplot
... R. Simplot was born in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1909. ... Frustrated with school and an overbearing father, Simplot dropped out at age 14 and moved to a local hotel, where he made money by paying cash for teachers wage scrip, at 50 cents on the dollar. Simplot then got a bank loan using the scrip as collateral and moved into farming, first by raising hogs and then by growing potatoes. ... Simplot purchased an electric potato sorter in 1928 and eventually dominated the local market by sorting for neighboring farms. By 1940 his company, J.R. Simplot, operated 33 potato warehouses in Oregon and Idaho. ... Between 1942 and 1945 J.R. Simplot produced more than 50 million pounds of dehydrated potatoes for the US military.