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Franklin Clarence Mars (Template:IPAc-en; September 24, 1883 – April 8, 1934) was an American business magnate who founded the food company Mars Inc., which mostly makes chocolate candy. Mars' son Forrest Mars developed M&M's and the Mars bar and founded the Ethel M Chocolate Factory.
FamilyEdit
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Mars was born on September 24, 1883, in Walden Township, Pope County, Minnesota.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He learned how to hand-dip chocolate candy as a child from his mother Alva, who entertained him while he had a mild case of polio.<ref name=Mars-history>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He began to sell molasses chips at age 19.<ref name="oprf">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Mars attended high school at the Breck School, a boarding school then located in Wilder, Minnesota.
Mars and Ethel G. Kissack (1882–1980),<ref name="Kissack" /> a schoolteacher, were married in 1902 in Hennepin County, Minnesota.<ref name=Mars-history /> Their son, Forrest Mars, Sr., was born in 1904 in Wadena, Minnesota.<ref name=Mars-history /> They divorced sometime before 1910.
Mars and Ethel Veronica Healy (1884–1945) were married in 1910 and had one daughter, Patricia Mars (1914–1965).<ref name="Billboard 1946" />
Mars, IncorporatedEdit
He started the Mars Candy Factory in 1911 with Ethel V. Mars, his second wife, in Tacoma, Washington. This factory produced and sold fresh candy wholesale, but ultimately the venture failed because there was a better established business, Brown & Haley, also operating in Tacoma.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 1920, they moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Mars founded Mar-O-Bar Co. and began to manufacture chocolate candy bars.<ref name="oprf" /> The company later incorporated as Mars, Incorporated.<ref name="oprf" /> In 1923 he introduced his son Forrest's idea,<ref name="El-Hai">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> the Milky Way, which became the best-selling candy bar.<ref name="oprf" /> Mars moved to Chicago in 1929<ref name="oprf" /> and settled in River Forest. He became an honorary captain of the Oak Park, Illinois police department.<ref name="oprf" />
In 1930, Mars developed the Snickers Bar.<ref name=El-Hai/>
Death and legacyEdit
Mars died from heart and kidney issues on April 8, 1934<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Ownership of the family business passed to his son Forrest.
Horse racingEdit
In the late 1920s, in Pulaski, Tennessee, Mars bought a number of local farms and constructed a large estate called Milky Way Farm. During its construction, Mars employed more than 935 men from Giles County to build a Template:Convert clubhouse, more than 30 barns, and a horse racing track.<ref name="milkywayfarmhistory" /> Gallahadion won the Kentucky Derby in 1940 after Mars died.<ref name=oprf />
Mars lived the remainder of his life on the Template:Convert farm and was buried there upon his death in 1934.<ref name="milkywayfarmhistory">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> After Milky Way Farm was sold,<ref name="milkywayfarmhistory" /> the remains of Mars and his wife Ethel V. Mars were moved to a private mausoleum at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis, where they are currently interred.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
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