As Ulysses S. Grant was elected president, J.R. began his fledgling company. Shortly before he died, in what was probably his last letter to company employees, J.R. wrote, “I started this business on January 1, 1868, and have been on the job ever since.” That is the year he produced his Watkins’ liniment, married Mary Ellen Heberling of Cadiz, Ohio, and moved to Plainview, Minnesota. There, a small shed that served as his laboratory, is often described as the beginning of the company. J.R. mixed his medicinals and then traveled in his one-horse wagon and sold directly to a growing number of faithful adherents. In 1885, the J.R. Watkins Medical Company, then a thriving business, moved its headquarters to Winona. There J.R. rented a four-room house, two rooms for the family and two to “manufacture his liniment, extracts, salves and various home remedies.” The burgeoning business led J.R. to persuade his nephew, Paul, to join him in Winona in 1889 as vice-president of the multi-million dollar business. At the time of J.R.’s sudden death in 1911, the company was in the midst of constructing its $1.2 million landmark that still serves as corporate headquarters. Nephew Paul led the Watkins Company for another twenty years of innovation and success, culminating in recognition at the International Exposition of 1928 in Paris, France, where the superiority of Watkins’ vanilla and spices received the highest honor – the Grand Prize with Gold Medal for superior quality. After the nephew’s leadership, the company was run by son-in-law, Ernest (E.L.) King. While a skilled businessman, E.L. King lacked some of the character qualities of his predecessors. Before being forced out as president of the Watkins Company after thirteen years at the helm, he and the company had to defend against federal government lawsuits for tax violations, drug labeling violations, and violating rationing laws during World War II. His son Bud took the reins in those post-war days when the Watkins Company was at its peak. The fortunes of the company turned around and began a long devastating slide. J.R.’s daughter, Grace, was the company’s largest stockholder from the time of her father’s death in 1911 until her own death in 1975 at the age of 98. She had wanted to sell the company at mid-century but was thwarted by her grandson’s refusal to sell his stock. As a result, Bud King was voted out by his sister and mother. Despite efforts at revitalizing the company by trying new approaches such as “counter stores” and by focusing on cosmetics (hoping to reap some of the profits being made at that time by Avon), the slide continued. Enormous annual losses crippled the company from 1964 to 1971 and resulted in the sale of all overseas holdings and many once-profitable regional manufacturing plants, until Winona was the lone manufacturing plant and distribution center. J.R.’s great-grandson, David King, took the company reins in 1972, hoping to return the company to profitability by recapturing its roots. But it was too late. Despite improved sales, the company filed for bankruptcy in 1978. That year, after 110 years of Watkins family ownership, Watkins Products, Inc., was sold to another Minnesota entrepreneur, Irwin Jacobs, who still saw its potential. Son Mark Jacobs became president in 1999 and the product line was “refined and expanded, completing the journey from Liniment to Linimax and the return to home remedy/natural wellness products.” Today, the company still sells the liniment that J.R. first bottled on Maine Prairie among its products, though the remedy once taken internally is now labeled strictly for external use. The likeness of J.R. continues as the trademark signature of Watkins products, and his guarantee of complete satisfaction is still proudly proclaimed as a mark of the quality of those products. Products, name and likeness are recognizable to customers around the world.
