From Eggs to “I Do”

A century-old family farm looks to outside leadership and new business ventures in the modern age.

By Julie H. Case | March 2010 | FROM THE PRINT EDITION

Credit: Photograph by Hayley Young

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,