You may know Greenville is home to Mother Mayo (Eugenia Duke) + the father of the beverage packer (Tom Hartness), but did you know Herman Lay (of Lay’s Potato Chips) has Greenville ties?
Lay was born in Charlotte in 1909 + his family moved to Greenville by 1920.
His entrepreneurial career started on our city’s streets, selling peanuts at baseball games and managing a team of local boys to operate a Pepsi-Cola stand. He also delivered newspapers via bicycle.
He graduated from Greenville High School in 1926 — lettering in baseball, basketball, and track — before attending Furman University on an athletic scholarship.
He started his career as a traveling salesman before starting the H.W. Lay Distributing Company in 1932. By 1937, he launched his own line of snack foods, and the company merged with The Frito Company in 1961. Then, Frito-Lay merged with Pepsi Co. in 1965 to create the company we know today.
