George C. Page

George C. Page (1901–2000) was an American real estate developer, shipper, entrepreneur and philanthropist; he is best known as the namesake of the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, California.

Page was born in Fremont, Nebraska. He lost his father at age five; Page and his brothers were raised by their mother as farmboys. When Page left for California at the age of sixteen—a goal he set four years earlier after tasting his first orange—the teenager had only $2.30 in his pocket. (Page later recalled, "I was so awed by the beauty of that piece of fruit that I said, 'I hope someday I can live where that came from.'")

Page worked as a busboy (which he initially believed meant steering a bus) and a soda jerk until he had earned one thousand dollars. With this capital, in 1917 he bought a vacant store and founded a distribution company, Mission Pak, which shipped California fruits like the orange as holiday gifts to cold-weather customers.

The idea came to Page as he boxed oranges home to his mother and brother one year earlier: thirty-seven residents at his boardinghouse had asked if he'd do them the same courtesy; the company proved enormously successful. (The Mission Pak jingle is still familiar to many older Angelenos: "Say the Magic words, say Mission Pak and it's on its merry way! No gift so bright, so gay, so right, give the Mission Pak magic way!")

Mr. Page was interviewed for Studs Terkel's book, The Good War, about his experiences as an entrepreneur and real estate developer during World War II.

At the time of Page's death, the president of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County observed, "The story of George C. Page embodies the American dream. His like will not come our way again."

...
Wikipedia