George A. Hormel

George Albert Hormel was an American entrepreneur born in Buffalo, New York, on 4 December 1860 to John George Hormel, a German immigrant leather tanner, and Susannah Hormel. He began working in a Chicago packinghouse at the age of twelve and later settled in Austin, Minnesota. In 1891 he founded the meat packing company that was then known as George A. Hormel and Company and is today Hormel Foods Corporation. He remained the head of the company until 1929, when he passed it to his son Jay Catherwood Hormel. His ownership stake in the firm made him one of the wealthiest Americans of his lifetime. He married Lilian Belle Gleason in 1892 and died in Los Angeles on 5 June 1946 at the age of 85; he is buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Austin.