- Edward Avery McIlhenny
Edward Avery "Ned" McIlhenny (1872 – 1949), son of Tabasco brand pepper sauce inventor
Edmund McIlhenny , was a Louisianabusinessman ,explorer , andconservationist .Born in 1872 on
Avery Island ,Louisiana , McIlhenny was educated by private tutors before attendingDr. Holbrook's Military School in Sing Sing (now Ossining),New York . McIlhenny enrolled atLehigh University , where he joinedPhi Delta Theta fraternity, but he dropped out of school to joinFrederick Cook 's 1894 Arctic expedition as anornithologist . In 1897 he financed his own Arctic expedition toPoint Barrow ,Alaska , where he helped to save over a hundred strandedwhaling fleetsailors (including Japaneseadventurer andentrepreneur Jujiro Wada ).As businessman
On his return to Louisiana, McIlhenny assumed control of
McIlhenny Company , overseeing Tabasco sauce production as president of the organization until his death fifty-one years later. During his tenture, McIlhenny expanded, modernized, and standardized sauce production, as well as experimented with new ways of promoting the world-famous product, such as advertising onradio .McIlhenny also introduced the now ubiquitous modern screw-top Tabasco sauce bottle, which replaced the original cork-top Tabasco sauce bottle that had been used from 1868 to 1927; he also redesigned the iconic Tabasco diamond logo trademark, largely creating the version known today.
As conservationist
McIlhenny founded the Bird City wildfowl refuge on Avery Island around 1895, which helped to save the
snowy egret from extinction. Enrolling the help of Charles Willis Ward, theRockefeller Foundation , and the Sage Foundation, McIlhenny was instrumental in securing nearly convert|175000|acre|km2 of south Louisiana coastalmarshland as wildfowl refuges. He banded over 285,000 birds during his lifetime and ran agame farm on Avery Island that experimented with breeding new animal varieties. He helped to introduce thenutria to Louisiana, although — contrary to popular belief — he did not import the creatures to Louisiana, nor was he the first Louisianan to set them loose in the wild on purpose.McIlhenny used his convert|250|acre|km2|sing=on personal estate, known as
Jungle Gardens , to propagateazaleas ,irises ,camellias ,bamboo , and other plant species. He wrote numerous academic articles, mainly aboutbirds , oversaw the publication in English of two European botanical treatises, and edited Charles L. Jordan's unfinished manuscript "The Wild Turkey and Its Hunting" (a book often mistakenly attributed to McIlhenny). He also wrote books aboutalligators ,egrets , andAfrican-American gospel music , including:* "Befo' De War Spirituals" (1933).
* "Bird City" (1934).
* "The Alligator's Life History" (1935).
* "The Autobiography of an Egret" (1940).Death and legacy
McIlhenny died in 1949, three years after suffering a debilitating
stroke ; he is buried on Avery Island. Today, Jungle Gardens and Bird City continue to serve as havens for bird and plant species; they are also popular tourist destinations. Furthermore, the nearly convert|175000|acre|km2 of coastal marshland he helped to set aside as wildfowl refuges continue to exist as state wildlife areas. The E. A. McIlhenny Natural History Collection atLouisiana State University is named in his honor.ee also
*
Edmund McIlhenny
*John Avery McIlhenny
*Walter S. McIlhenny
*Tabasco sauce ources
* Shane K. Bernard, "M'sieu Ned's Rat? Reconsidering the Origin of Nutria in Louisiana: The E. A. McIlhenny Collection, Avery Island, Louisiana," "Louisiana History", 43 (Summer 2002), 281-93.
* Shane K. Bernard, "Tabasco: An Illustrated History" (Avery Island, La.: McIlhenny Company, 2007).
* John Bockstoce, "The Arctic Whaling Disaster of 1897" (New York, N.Y.: Explorers Club, 1978).
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.