From Eggs to “I Do”

Wilcox Family Farms CEO Linda Thomas is working with the new generation of owners, including Andy Wilcox (right), to develop new sources of revenue.

When Judson Wilcox traded his Seattle home for a farm in rural Roy, Wash., in 1909, he couldn't have imagined the site would one day be used to host weddings and events. Neither could he have conceived of the concept of-or value in-organic farming practices, in this case the consumer's cravings for organic eggs.

Raised on a farm near Toronto, Wilcox traveled to the Pacific Northwest and Alaska to try his hand at gold panning, a prospect that dulled quickly. When he failed to strike it rich in precious metals, the farmboy-turned-prospector turned his attention to hats, opening a haberdashery in Seattle's Pioneer Square. But still, the lure of the farm remained. So Wilcox found a farm that would allow him to work in trade for room and board. After his first week on the job, Wilcox-without his wife's knowledge-traded it all away: his home in Capitol Hill for the farm in Roy.

Worse barters have been made. Today, the 240-acre property he picked up-not so much farm at the time as it was timber-covered land and swamp-sprawls across 1,800 acres and is home not only to numerous henhouses but also to a farm machinery and car museum, a church and, soon, a small event center, says Linda Thomas, CEO of Wilcox Family Farms.

At first, the Wilcoxes were subsistence farmers. But after about a decade, both Judson Wilcox and his wife, Elizabeth, enrolled in poultry raising courses through Washington State University Extension in Puyallup. They attended sessions at alternating times so they could continue to run the farm, and went into the commercial poultry business. From inauspicious beginnings-half of the couple's 1,000-bird flock died the first night-came an empire: the Wilcox Family Farms brand.

The business has since remained in the family. In 1931, son Truman joined the operation and the farm began making a profit. Nine years later, the chicken flock had grown to 5,000, a few head of cattle were added to the operation, and income for the farm reached about $20,000.

In 1961, the farm entered the dairy business as well, and by 1969, by which time the third generation of Wilcoxes had joined the company, the farm was processing and packaging its own eggs, opening a milk processing plant four years later.

Yet, while the farm was large and diversified, not all was well. With milk prices falling and costs rising,