WELCOME TO FORGOTTEN BUFFALO & TOURS

Founded 75 Years Ago as a Matter of Survival, Metholatum Co. Is still run by Hyde Family

By Dean Richmond

(Originally appeared in the Buffalo Evening News, Saturday, October 31, 1964)

Albert A. Hyde founded Mentholatum in 1889 in Wichita, Kansas; company moved to Buffalo in 1903.

The Mentoholatum Co., whose products have been used in more households in the far corners of the globe than those of any other Buffalo-based company, is celebrating its 75^th anniversary.

Over the years, billions of Mentholatum packages of various sorts have been ordered in just about as many languages as there are. Last year alone, a record of more than 100 million packages of Mentholatum products were sold in nearly every country in the Free World.

Mentholatum has been operated by the Hyde family ever since it was founded by the later Albert A. Hyde in 1889 in Wichita, Kansas.  The company has had a Buffalo plant since 1903 and now has its headquarters and main factory at 1360 Niagara Street.

Mentholatum today is managed by four members of the Hyde, all of whom are cousins and all in their 40s. Albert T Hyde is president: Edward K. Hyde II is vice president-secretary: George H. Hyde is treasurer, and Theodore A. Hyde is assistant secretary and assistant treasurer. James J. Devlin is vice president and advertising director.  The company has well over 100 stockholders, many of whom are employees.

Mentholatum is an unusual company by today’s harsh business standards. The founder was a deeply religious man who believed in applying Christian principles in his day-to-day business dealings. Prayers, bible passages and homey little sayings replaced the “hard sell” in some of the company’s brochures. At one period in his life, Mr. Hyde kept only 10% of his annual income, donating the rest to worthy causes. A great many Mentholatum products have been given by the company to the sick and needy in countries all over the world. The company donated nearly 200,000 jars of Mentholatum to help effect the release of Cuban invasion prisoners last year.

The Mentholatum plant in Japan actually is owned by a Christian brotherhood, an arrangement made possible by the support of the Hyde family. Earnings of the Japanese operation support a Christian mission, tuberculosis sanitarium and a school in Japan. The Mentholatum – sponsored operations in Japan even were allowed to operate during World War II. The Buffalo company continues to make substantial contributions and acts in an advisory and technical capacity to the mission and its facilities.

The Mentholatum Co. was started by a stroke of chance. Its founder had gone to Wichita from New England to help run a bank. There, he amasses a “paper” fortune of about $100,000 in real-estate boom. It collapsed and left Mr. Hyde deeply in debt. At this point Mr. Hyde and two associates, in order to feed their families, with $200 each formed a company that bore the usual name of the Yucca Co.  Its products Toilet soap (made from the yucca cactus plant), shaving soap, perfumery, petrolatum, sewing-machine oil, drug specialties and Mentholatum. Sales weren’t enough to support three families and it was decided that Mr. Hyde, because he had the largest family, nine children, would buy out his two partners.

Former Mentholatum plant & offices in Fort Erie (Bridgeburg), Ontario, Canada.

The miscellaneous products gradually were dropped and the company adopted its present name in 1906. The first branch plant was in Buffalo and the present four-story factory was erected in the early 1920s. The founder died in 1935. Three of his sons gradually took over top management of Mentholatum.

Edward K. Hyde became president in the mid-1920s. He started the company’s big export business and its Buffalo plant. The affiliated Mentholatum Company in Slough, England, was started by the late T.W. Turner. The late Paul H. Hyde became president in the late 1940s retiring in 1955 when he was succeeded by the current present. Paul Hyde personally designed or improved much of the plants machinery.  Another son of the founder, Charles H. Hyde, retired in 1955 as vice president. He established Metholatum’s Canadian subsidiary in Fr. Erie in 1914 and managed it for many years.

Metholatum’s Buffalo plant has a work force of about 75 but well over 1000 families all over their world owe their livelihood to Mentholatum plants, licensees and similar operations. The subsidiary Mentholatum Inter-American Corp, headed by George Hyde operates the Fr. Erie plant and has various types of manufacturing facilities in Peru, Argentina, Columbia, Chile and Mexico. The English Mentholatum company ships to the sterling-block nations in Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. It also has licenses in West Germany, Denmark, Norway & Sweden. The parent company in Buffalo has licensees in the Philippines Islands and Spain and sips to places such as Puerto Rico, Hong Kong and the Pacific islands. “Every time a country gets an extreme nationalistic feeling and decides to restrict imports, we have to set up a licensee or branch plan or get out,” explained the company’s president Albert Hyde. “For this reason we are expanding our base of operation in South America at present.”

 The company bought a plant site in Wilmington, Delaware shortly before World War II and actually planned to build its headquarters location there. In fact, for a while after the Wichita plant was closed, about in 1937, Mentholatum had all its sales, advertising, accounting and some warehousing in a building in Wilmington. Plans were reconsidered and entire operation was consolidated in Buffalo in 1946.

Mentholatum maintains an extensive research and development department that is continually testing and attempting to device new products. Besides its Mentholatum ointment, “Deep-hearing Rub” and “Medicated Stick” for chapped lips, the company now is marking other products on a test basis.

Directors of the parent Mentholatum Company, besides the officers, are Charles Hyde, Buffalo; Samuel D. Magavern, a Buffalo attorney; Dr. John M. Hyde, a professor at Williams College; Edward B. Williams, New York, and Philip Schindel, Verona, N.J.

MRS. A. A. HYDE SUCCUMBS TO LONG ILLNESS
Wichita Mourns Passing of Woman Beloved by All

Wichita Evening Eagle, Friday, February 10, 1933

Mrs. A. A. Hyde, 78, died in her Wichita home this morning. She succumbed to ravages of advancing age after an illness of about six months. At that time she suffered a stroke and although she made a brave fight for life gradually lost ground. She is the mother of nine children, all grown and in sound health. She came to Wichita in 1873 and during the intervening 60 years had made her home here.

Charles H. Symthe Obit
Sunday, November 5, 1933 - Wichita Beacon

Wichita pioneer businessman Charles H. Symthe dies at his hunting lodge near Mt. Hope, KS. He was 76. Born in Wisconsin, his father was Captain F.G. Smythe for many years operated ships between England and the West Indies and later captain of ships on the Great Lakes. Charles Smythe came to Wichita with his parents in 1875. After his arrival, his father established a hardware business named F.G. Smythe and Sons. The sons associated with the business were Charles H. and Fred. Two other sons, James and Roberts, came to Wichita with their parents. One of the sons, William, remained in Wisconsin. Survived by his wife, Anna Lynch, one son, Charles. Jr, and two daughters, Mrs. O. B. Winters and Mrs. Maeball Hyde, wife of Charles H. Hyde. He was actively involved in negotiating the sale of the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railroad to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad in 1928. His brother Fred Smyth died in California June 22, 1933.