Groenewold Business Collection (Forreston)

Mr. George Groenewold, founder of the Groenewold Fur and Wool Company is an imigrant from Friesland (Germany) who arrived in the United States in January 1924. He worked on a farm his first year in America and then attended and finished his schooling at a local academy during the next several years. In the months after leaving school, in order to support himself, Mr. Groenewold began hauling milk and cheese locally and then to Chicago. His experiences in Chicago encouraged him to diversify into other businesses, such as poultry and eggs and by the second year his inventory included seven trucks. In 1929 Mr. Groenewold founded the fur and wool company business based on contacts he had made in his other businesses. By concentrating on every type of pelted animal native to the midwest trapped by farmers and by hiring sheep raisers to sheer their own sheep, Mr. Groenewold placed himself in an enviable position: raw materials he needed for his business were readily available, almost in finished form, and were fairly easily acquired. Throughout the next thirty four years other interests were added (a nursery, farm implements) but the fur and wool business remained dominant. In 1963 George Groenewold turned the business over to his son, Grant, but not before his company had become one of America’s largest exporters to Europe of fur and wool products.

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