Artist: Robert Wadsworth Grafton (1876–1936)
Thomas Edward Wilson
WILSON, THOMAS EDWARD (1868–1958), inducted 1916
Born in London, Ontario, Thomas E. Wilson moved to Chicago after high school, to work as a railroad car checker in the bustling stockyards. In 1890, he took a position with Morris and Company, working his way up through the ranks, and eventually succeeding Edward Morris as president in 1913. Bankers convinced him to take over a failing New York meatpacking company, Sulzberger & Sons, in 1916. Wilson relocated the company to Chicago, renamed it Wilson & Company, and transformed it into the third largest meat packing company in the nation, behind Armour and Swift. Simultaneously, he headed Ashland Manufacturing Company, which used animal by-products to create tennis racket strings, violin strings, and surgical sutures. He renamed this company Thomas E. Wilson Company and aggressively increased its sports lines. Today, that company is Wilson Sporting Goods. Wilson was an important influence on the branding of processed meats, having developed many of today’s popular value-added beef and pork products. He was the first president of the Institute of American Meat Packers, a director of the International Live Stock Exposition, and president of the Oklahoma City Stock Yards Company. Thomas Wilson bred many outstanding Shorthorn cattle and Clydesdale horses on his Edellyn Farm near Lake Forest, Illinois.
Source: Saddle & Sirloin Guidebook 2026, p. 203