HUBERT HASKELL PEAVEY HISTORY

WASHBURN WISCONSIN








Hubert Haskell Peavey was my Great Grandfather. The museum in Washburn sent me this information.
Submitted by: Skip Peavey

Although they haven�t lived in Washburn in years, the Peavey name, much like the Brink name, will forever be a part of the town�s colorful and unique history. �Peavey Hill� was a place for hikers and snowmobilers to enjoy, but it was shrouded in a cloak of mystery. It seems that nobody really knows what burnt a huge circle on top of the hill, which for over thirty years, nothing ever grew there.

When the patriarch of the family, Hubert Haskell, (H.H.) Peavey from, Redwood Falls, Minnesota, literally rolled into town, Washburn, Bayfield County, Wisconsin in May 1910 in the second car (F.M.F.) that was ever owned by a Washburnite , he started on a successful drive to help change the face of not only Washburn and the northernmost reaches of Wisconsin, but of the North American Continent as well.

From the get-go he quickly made things happen in the town where he would live until his death in 1937. With in two years after arriving he was elected Mayor and reelected in 1920.

H.H. Peavey wore many hats; fruit farmer, real estate agent, alderman, newspaper editor (Washburn News & Itemizer), fur farmer. �We bought the fur farm from the Captain Hubert H. Peavey Estate,� said Alvin Bratley, whose family still owns the land at the headwaters of the Cranberry River up near Herbster. �By then all the foxes were gone and there was probably only 2-3 beavers left. Captain Peavey owned eight 40s (about 3,200 acres), but fenced off about half of them.

He was also a Congressman (1922 � 28) and was the first to introduce a National Park on the Apostle Islands in the late 1920�s, but that didn�t happen because loggers had cut most of the trees down, so the landscape wasn�t appealing at the time. He was the one who authorized the legislation that brought about the start of the Saint Lawrence sea way, which was signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In June of 1921 he was the last dignitary who spoke when the first ship built in Washburn was being launched. He ended his speech with the following memorable words, �I think I better stop talking because this ship is hanging by a thread.� The shipyard workers tugged and pulled, but unfortunately the �Hudson-Athens� barely moved, got hung up and beached. The crowd became restless and finally a loud and booming voice hollered, �Hey, get Captain Peavey to find the thread.�

His wife Ella Green was one of the first co-educational students at the Pillsbury Academy. Since it was extremely rare back then for women to be in a military academy, she may have been the first coed to graduate (1903) from a military institution in U.S. History.

All three of their children graduated from Walker High (the original WHS); Lynn 1927, Winifred (Dittbrenner) 1934 and Nellmary 1940. Lynn, an avid sportsman who after graduating, immediately got a job with a newspaper in Prentice, Wisconsin. At the time he was probably the youngest newspaper publisher in America. (Zane�s father)

Around 1951 he formed the Lynn Peavey Company and marketed unique, plastic reclosable bags to hospitals and pharmacies nationwide. The bags were called �gripr-top�. Lynn was one of the first to market the bags that today are known as �Zip Lock� bags. The location was in he and his wife Carmen�s spare bedroom in Prairie Village, Kansas.

It wasn�t much of a surprise when Lynn rose to prominence in the business world because he came from a long line of successful entrepreneurs besides his father. His uncle, Frank Haskell, who spent time in Washburn and the Haskell Building (old Washburn Hospital/Foreman Building) named in his honor, founded Beatrice Foods one of the nations largest wholesale food companies. Another of his uncles, Bill Peavey, founded the Peavey Milling Company, which today is known as ConAgra, the largest milling company in the world. Harold Peavey, another uncle whom he worked for in the 1940�s started the Peavey Paper Mills based in Ladysmith, Wisconsin, and this company became one of the largest Paper Mill in the world. It is estimated that the net revenues of these companies generate in excess of 14.2 billion dollars.

Lynn�s son, Zane Peavey, first got his feet wet with the company in 1958 and helped with the plastic bag business while starting the Peavey Advertising Company. Today Zane�s three sons; Skip, Buck, and Doug are all involved with the Peavey Corporation.

Skip, graduated from Westminster College started in the family business in 1983 and founded the S.H. Peavey Company, which manufactures unique high end full-color custom name badges. In 1990 Buck Peavey graduated from the University of Kansas and started working with the Motivation Services, focusing on the Safety Incentive Industry, and after one year of Filed research, he created a game card incentive concept named �Safety Jackpot�.

It was during last year�s Ice Cream Social up at the new elementary school when I happened to notice the Peavey name while talking to Washburn Police Chief Ken Johnson. I was quite surprised by the name on the fingerprint kit that he was showing �Lynn Peavey Company�. �I heard of this guy,� I told the Chief. �He was from Washburn.�

The chief said, �We�ve been using the Lynn Peavey Company�s products before I started in 1997. I think when Jack Bratley was chief is when we first started using their items.�

Much credit for the success of the Lynn Peavey Company is due to the hard work, business awareness and savvy of Doug Peavey, Lynn�s grandson. After graduating from his father Zane�s ala Mater, the University of Missouri in 1980, he started working in the family business, �My grandfather woke up early each morning and began work at around 3:30. By the time my father arrived, my grandfather had almost a half a day in.�

So what started in the 1927 WHS graduate�s basement has grown tremendous leaps and bounds and today The Peavey Corporation resides in a 140,000 square feet headquarters based in Lenexa, Kansas, a Kansas City Suburb. It now has over 800 evidence collection related items and has become the leading law enforcement supply company nationwide. Some of their clients include CIA, FBI , the Los Angeles and New York Police Departments and as far away as France, Israel, and The United Kingdom.

Not bad for a former Washburn boy who lived at 329 East Forth Street, and whose parents are buried in town, and who in 1968 he caught the largest muskie (up to that time) in the southern half of the United States



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