Pursuits

The Birth of Kitty Litter

1954: Tidy Cat, the first mass-produced brand of kitty litter, arrives in supermarkets.

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By Paul Ford

December 5, 2014 at 1:43 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

This article is part of the December 8, 2014 issue of businessweek.

1954 Tidy Cat, the first mass-produced brand of kitty litter, arrives in supermarkets.

Ed Lowe was working at his father’s delivery business in southern Michigan when he had a brilliant idea: take some fuller’s earth (a type of clay) and sell it to local farmers for chickens to nest. He called it Chicken Litter.