Minnesota Prairie Roots

Vanilla has long been a staple bestseller at Watkins.

MY MEMORIES OF THE WATKINS MAN are peripheral. A man at the door of our farmhouse peddling vanilla and spices to my farm wife mother.

Spices have always been a popular product with Watkins customers. These vintage spice containers are showcased in the museum.

It was an era when rural women mostly stayed home to raise their families, when families owned only one car, when the distance from farm to town was traversed but once a month.

Early on in the 1900s, the Watkins man delivered products via a horse-pulled wagon.

Salesmen, like the Watkins man, the Fuller Brush Man and the Schwans man brought goods and/or food to doorsteps. Personal service. Meeting a need.

In September, my husband and I stayed overnight in Winona, a southeastern Minnesota community we’ve visited often given our eldest daughter attended college there. Never, though, had we taken the time to explore the J.R. Watkins Museum & Store and the adjacent impressive administrative headquarters. This trip we did.

This portrait of founder J.R. Watkins hangs in the museum.

The business started in 1868, not in Winona, but in neighboring Plainview where Joseph Ray Watkins made and sold Dr. Ward’s Vegetable Anodyne Liniment. He’d secured the recipe from a Cincinnati physician. Today the company still sells a 96.5 percent natural pain-relieving liniment. (Click here to read a synopsis of Watkins’ history.)

The historic Watkins complex (museum, first floor on left, administrative building on right) is on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1885, J.R. moved his business to the growing Mississippi River community of Winona. Through the years, the company flourished, and then floundered as times changed and the door-to-door sales strategy became less effective with more women working outside the home. Consumers’ tastes were also changing. Eventually, the company filed bankruptcy and was purchased in 1978 by businessman Irwin Jacobs. Now his son, Mark, heads Watkins, a thriving business that currently offers 350 products.

Watkins still sells beauty/healthcare items. These samples are in the store.

Spices have always been an integral part of Watkins.

Watkins recently partnered with Kemps.

Today Watkins remains an important part of Winona, not only as a business that markets gourmet, bath and body, health, and home care products, but as an integral part of local family histories. You may not learn this touring the museum or reading the company’s history online. But talk to a museum staffer and you will hear about hometown loyalty.

Various sizes of Watkins vanillas are sold in the museum store. A recipe for Vanilla Coffee Creamer is printed on the package holding the vanilla I purchased.

I learned, for example, that the vanilla in most Winona kitchens is Watkins’ vanilla. It has always been a company top seller. The staffer did not offer proof of this claim. But I don’t doubt her assessment. I purchased a two-ounce bottle of Watkins “naturally and artificially flavored double strength vanilla” labeled as “superior quality since 1868” and “awarded Gold Medal for highest quality.”

There’s a model of Winona, including the Watkins complex, in the museum.

But the most interesting local tidbit she shared is that of “Winona Coffee,” coffee sweetened with a drop or two of Watkins vanilla added to the grounds. This is apparently how many Winonans prefer their coffee. And that says a lot for a company based in this city for 130 years.

ARE YOU FAMILIAR with the Watkins Company and, if so, do you have a favorite product?

BONUS PHOTOS:

Entering the museum up several steps and through a side door.

Watkins spices are well-known and a major part of the company’s business.

Love the art on this vintage can of Watkins baking powder.

The annual Watkins almanac was printed in The Watkins Print Shop, open for 88 years. The shop is now the site of the Watkins museum, where the almanacs are displayed.

This toy truck, displayed in the museum, carries bags of spices.

Watkins produced items for troops during WW II to fulfill government contracts.

An overview of a section of the museum.

Pine cleaner, compared to the smell of the Minnesota northwoods.

Art in a vintage Watkins calendar.

Watkins even sold mouse killer (aka warfarin) at one time.

FYI: The Watkins Museum is open from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Monday – Friday and from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Saturdays. It’s located at 150 Liberty Street, near downtown Winona. Admission is free. Also consider touring the administrative headquarters around the corner featuring Tiffany stained glass windows. Check back tomorrow for a post on that building as I continue my series of stories from Winona.