feeds company descended from ralston purina . for the purina pet food company see nestl purina petcare . purina mills llc type subsidiary industry animal feeds founded st. louis missouri 1894 headquarters gray summit missouri united states area served united states key people william h. danforth founder products livestock food animal health products parent ralston purina 1894 1986 british petroleum 1986 1993 sterling group of houston 1993 1998 koch industries 1998 2001 land o lakes 2001 present website www.purinamills.com purina mills llc is the farm animal feeds unit of land o lakes . it was previously part of ralston purina but the u.s. animal feeds portion was sold in 1986 . contents 1 history 2 logo 3 references 4 external links history edit purina traces its roots back to 1894 when founder william h. danforth began producing feed for various farm animals under the name purina mills . the predominant brand for each animal was generally referred to as chow ; hence there was purina horse chow purina dog chow purina cat chow purina rabbit chow purina pig chow and even purina monkey chow . later in 1902 he merged with university professor webster edgerly founder of ralstonism who was at the time producing breakfast cereals to form the ralston purina company . 1 ralston purina sold purina mills the u.s. animal feed business to british petroleum in 1986 while retaining the pet food and international animal feed businesses . in 1993 the sterling group of houston led a leveraged buyout of purina mills . in 1998 it was purchased by koch industries but a u.s. bankruptcy court cancelled out all equity held by koch to maintain the company s viability . purina mills was purchased by land o lakes in 2001 . 2 purina mills licenses the purina and chow brands for the united states and its territories including puerto rico from the successor of the ralston purina company and owner of the trademarks nestl purina petcare . outside of the u.s. the rights to the purina brand for animal feeds is owned by cargill 3 4 in canada the feed business is known as agribrands purina canada inc. 5 logo edit mason transfer and grain co. bonded warehouse on the south texas border storing purina chows and bearing the purina checkerboard markings . taken by robert runyon c. 1900 1920 . ralston purina was famed for its checkerboard trademark . the inspiration for the ralston purina logo came from a family from founder william danforth s childhood who dressed in checkerboard cloth . 6 the checkerboard trademark intended to make their burlap bags of feed stand out from competitors was introduced in 1904 . 7 ralston purina s headquarters was called checkerboard square . at one point ralston purina owned an interest in the st. louis blues national hockey league team ; during this period the arena they then used was referred to as the checkerdome . the checkerboard logo then evolved into a personal development concept danforth put forth in his book i dare you in which he proposed that four key components in life physical mental social and religious need to be in balance and one area was not to develop at expense of the other . 8 the concept became intertwined with the company in 1921 when it began selling feed that was pressed in cubes called checkers . 9 references edit carman tim 2009 04 16 food history potpourri ralston purina s d.c. roots washington city paper retrieved 2009 10 19 history of purina mills inc. fundinguniverse . cargill feed brands purina . cargill feed about history . http www.agripurina.ca eq en contact us2 about us about purina index.jsp a glimpse from the past to the present . soci t des produits nestl s.a. vevey switzerland . retrieved 2009 10 19 . http www.purinamills.com ourheritage default.aspx danforth william . i dare you . kessinger publishing llc . isbn 0 7661 2786 9 . william h. danforth founder . purina . archived from the original on march 30 2014 . retrieved 2015 02 18 . external links edit official site retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title purina mills & oldid 743839297 categories animal food manufacturerscompanies established in 1894companies based in missouri navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 11 october 2016 at 15 23 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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