Budlong Pickle Company

In the 19th century, Chicago was a powerhouse of American agriculture. The Union Stock Yards was the center of American meatpacking, and the Chicago Board of Trade provided financial support for investment in agricultural commodities.[1]

In addition to its dominance in meatpacking and the grain trade, Chicago was a center of American pickle industry in the late 19th century.[2] Among the reasons for Chicago's pickle prominence were ample supplies of salt and a robust rail infrastructure.[3]

The Budlong family, an old Rhode Island family and the namesake of Budlong Farm, were established farmers and picklers on the East Coast, with a large operation in Cranston, Rhode Island.[4][5]

In the late 1850s, Lyman A. Budlong (1829–1909) started a large farm in Chicago—in an area now named Budlong Woods—called the Budlong Nursery.[6][7] Dates of the Nursery's establishment vary, but it must have been in 1857, the year that Lyman first came to Chicago, or later.[6]

The Nursery, nicknamed the "village of glass" after its many greenhouses, produced large quantities of cucumbers, onions, and other vegetables.[7] It also grew flowers.[8] Approximately 700 acres (2.8 km²) in size, the center of the farm was at what is now the intersection of California and Foster Avenues in the Budlong Woods section of Chicago's Lincoln Square community area.[9][10]

The Budlong Pickle Company, founded in 1857 or 1859, was initially part of the same enterprise as the Nursery.[9][11][12] In 1903, the Chicago Sunday Tribune called Budlong's the largest pickle farm in the world;[10] as of 1928, the Tribune called "one of the largest pickle factories in the world".[13] It sold approximately 100,000 bushels of pickled cucumbers per year during the late 19th century.[11] In 1899, Joseph J. Budlong—Lyman's brother—patented a vegetable sorting device "particularly applicable to the sorting or grading of pickles according to size".[14]

The factory was located at the intersection of Lincoln and Berwyn avenues,[8] and a special "pickle train" ran on the Chicago and North Western line to pick up its employees.[10] The farm employed a number of laborers who had immigrated to the United States from central and eastern Europe.[10] As of 1903, workers earned an average of $1.25 per day, or approximately $41 today; some earned as little as 25 cents, or around $8.[10]

The Nursery property was a golf course by the late 1920s, but the Pickle Company continued operations thereafter.[3] Lyman Budlong had reportedly made at least $1.5 million (approximately equivalent to $48,856,000 in 2022) from the Nursery as of his death c. November 1909.[6][15]

George L. Hathaway was Budlong's longtime president.[16] In 1945, Hathaway was presented with an award by the National Pickle Packers Association for demonstrating "outstanding fairness … in procuring pickles for the armed forces".[17]

Budlong had operations in Columbia, Mississippi, as of 1936;[18] and in Ora, Indiana, as of 1940.[19]

In 1958, it merged with a Green Bay, Wisconsin–based food company specializing in pickles, which was later acquired by Dean Foods (now part of Dairy Farmers of America).[16][20][21]

Although the Nursery and Pickle Company no longer exist, a Chicago-based restaurant has taken on the Budlong name. The Budlong Hot Chicken was founded in 2015 by restaurateur Jared Leonard and currently has 5 stores in Chicago.[22][23]

The Budlong name also survives in the Lyman A. Budlong Public School,[24] and Budlong Woods, a part of the Lincoln Square community area.[25]