A discovery inside the former Pillsbury Mills site in Springfield is raising new questions about the origins of the iconic Pillsbury Doughboy character.
A drawing of the character, flexing his bicep, was found late last year on a control panel door in what had been the bakery mix area of the plant.
The group Moving Pillsbury Forward thinks the drawing could date back to the mid-1960s; that would correspond to accounts from former employees who claim that the character actually originated with a Springfield employee who drew the figure at various places around the plant in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Those accounts indicate the worker eventually shared the drawings with company officials, who compensated him for the drawing before making it the company’s mascot – yet the official account, as per Moving Pillsbury Forward, is much different.
“The official Pillsbury Company story is that the Pillsbury Doughboy was created by a Chicago advertising agency hired by Pillsbury in 1965. Locally, however, employees of the former Pillsbury Mills plant in Springfield, Illinois tell a different story. They have reported that a Springfield plant employee sketched the original doughboy image.”
Moving Pillsbury Forward is seeking more information in an effort to verify the Springfield accounts and determine if the Doughboy was actually created by someone from Springfield -who might yet be known to history!
